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Herman Melville's "In the Prison Pen" · The Daily Poem

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: welcome back to the daily poem a podcast from goldberry studios i'm sean johnson
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  SPEAKER_00: and today is monday july 13th 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: today's poem is by herman melville it's called in
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  SPEAKER_00: the prison pen i'll read it once offer a few comments and read it one more time in
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  SPEAKER_00: the prison pen listless he eyes the palisades and sentries in the glare of
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  SPEAKER_00: tis barren as a pelican beach but his world is ended there nothing to do
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  SPEAKER_00: and vacant hands bring on the idiot pain he tries to think to recollect but
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  SPEAKER_00: the blur is on his brain around him swarm the planing ghosts like those
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  SPEAKER_00: on virgil's shore a wilderness of faces dim and pale ones gashed and whore
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  SPEAKER_00: a smiting sun no shed no tree he totters to his lair a den that sick hands dug
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  SPEAKER_00: in earth air famine wasted there or dropping by his place he swoons walled in
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  SPEAKER_00: by throngs that press till forth from throngs they bear him dead dead
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  SPEAKER_00: in his meagerness this is definitely a heavy and heartbreaking poem
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  SPEAKER_00: it comes from melville's first published collection of poetry called battle pieces
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  SPEAKER_00: and aspects of the war published in 1866 it was a collection of reflections
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  SPEAKER_00: and responses to the civil war that had just ended but he was consciously trying
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  SPEAKER_00: to avoid and falling into some of the patterns of war poetry at the time
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  SPEAKER_00: for one thing he was
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  SPEAKER_00: dead set on being as apolitical as possible obviously you can't comment
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  SPEAKER_00: on your recent war in your own country and not be at least tangentially political
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  SPEAKER_00: but you'll notice that in the poem it's never clear whether this is a union prisoner
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  SPEAKER_00: in a confederate prison camp or a confederate prisoner in
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  SPEAKER_00: a union prison camp melville's interest was in the
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  SPEAKER_00: effect on the human caught in the middle of war the side of the conflict
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  SPEAKER_00: that human happened to be on was less materially important for melville
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  SPEAKER_00: and you can see what he believes the effect to be this is not only a bleak scene
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  SPEAKER_00: that is described in the poem but
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  SPEAKER_00: you have a kind of slow dehumanization word choices even like the word pen in
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  SPEAKER_00: the title and then den and lair in the final stanzas and the man going from standing
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  SPEAKER_00: to sinking digging with his hands not using tools not being able to think clearly
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  SPEAKER_00: the descriptions the word choice the imagery all suggesting this descent into
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  SPEAKER_00: a bestial existence not by choice but by the circumstance he's been forced
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  SPEAKER_00: into poems like these become an interesting study of melville's sort of mode
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  SPEAKER_00: of attention and narrative style in
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  SPEAKER_00: the ways they anticipate his later masterpiece moby dick here's
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  SPEAKER_00: the poem one more time
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  SPEAKER_00: listless he eyes the palisades and sentries in the glare tis barren as
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  SPEAKER_00: a pelican beach but his world is ended there nothing to do and vacant hands bring on
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  SPEAKER_00: the idiot pain he tries to think to recollect but the blur is
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  SPEAKER_00: on his brain around him swarm the planing ghosts like those on virgil's shore
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  SPEAKER_00: a wilderness of faces dim and pale ones gashed in horror
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  SPEAKER_00: a smiting sun no shed no tree he totters to his lair a den that sick hands dug
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  SPEAKER_00: in earth air famine wasted there or dropping by his place he swoons walled in
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  SPEAKER_00: by throngs that press till forth from throngs they bear him dead dead
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  SPEAKER_00: in his meagerness this has been the daily poem thanks
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  SPEAKER_00: for listening we'll be back tomorrow with more poetry for you
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  SPEAKER_00: in the meantime find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to subscribe and support
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  SPEAKER_00: the show to listen to past episodes of the daily poem to join conversations
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  SPEAKER_00: about each day's poem and more for all of us
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  SPEAKER_00: at goldberry studios i'm sean johnson wishing you happy reading