On first reading “Pastoral” by Karen Solie, we notice that it is set in a countryside valley where the speaker is vacationing since, she mentions that “[she’s] here to relax” (line 14). The poet shows this relaxed stance by her conversational tone; she employs spoken language. This attitude is further emphasized by the long lines of the poem whose enjambments do not follow any apparent rule, as if the speaker were simply in conversation with the reader. The only structure seems to be the separation of the two stanzas, which leads us to ask: how do these two parts differ? What is similar throughout both sections, however, is the vocabulary related to nature: “softwood” (1), “worm” (1), “river” (7), “beaver” (10), “hindquarters” (17), “lichen” (19), and others. One word employed by the author in the first stanza does stand out: what is a “Julia / Set” (8-9)? Additionally, the speaker leaves us puzzled by the expression in her final sentence: how are the valley and the poet “out for blood” (26)?

We realize that the poem’s multiple references to the natural world establish a fairly obvious comparison between nature and the speaker, and that the two different stanzas show two sides of their resemblance. Starting with the first stanza, notice that it is entirely a comparison between the non-living elements of nature and the poet as “[w]orm-addled stick, river, sap, my fingertips all of it / points in patterns on a complex plane: A Julia / Set” (7-9). A Julia Set is a fractal set which repeats the same patterns no matter how much you zoom into its shape once it is graphed out. It proves order in the chaos of its shape, as the same motifs are always repeating. Since a Julia Set references the insignificance of size in patterns, things as big as a river and as small as fingertips all follow the same designs and are inevitably alike yet not the same. The poet then continues with the discussion of that which is inanimate and herself in the first stanza to say that “[they] even sound the same, a surge of air / and fluids” (9-10). Solie is referring to the similarity between the valley’s wind and water, and her breathing and her blood. Except, she then contrasts this connection as, unlike the valley, “[she] beaver[s] [herself] up / with cigarettes and booze” (10-11), using substances that do not belong to the natural world. How does the change of tone and vocabulary tie into the comparison Solie is clearly trying to build? This shift in demeanor continues until the end of the first stanza, where there is a new comparison in the second section of the poem, as the poet is now related to the valley and its living components, established by the last lines of the poem where “[t]he whole valley / is out for blood, for itself. As of course, [is she]” (25-26). The valley here refers to all the plants and animals named by the poet: “mugwort” (16), “foxtail” (16), “squirrel” (22), “[c]ougars” (23), and many more. In this case, the animals present a clear pattern of violence through Solie’s diction as the “squirrel regards [her] squarely” (22), the “[c]ougars are culling local pets” (23), the “elk” (24) have “murder in their eyes” (24), and “[t]he whole valley / is out for blood” (25-26). As the valley represents all the beings inside of it, it is out for its own blood, as the animals inside of it are hunting each other. Since the poet is compared to the valley, she must therefore also have similar internal struggles. We can now compare the two stanzas and realize that the first one is entirely based on a mathematical unity between the inanimate in the valley and the poet, whereas the second one presents instead a unity of violence between the living.

This violent unity of the animals in the second stanza does seem to have a pattern. It becomes evident when “[a]n indigenous squirrel regards [her] squarely” (22); we notice diction referring to the indige- nous when violence is mentioned. This same aggressivity is present with the “[c]ougars” and the “elk” who, like the squirrel, are both animals native to valleys. To contrast, direct vocabulary related to the invasive is also mentioned by the “noxious weeds [which] overrun the parkland / … dropped from hindquarters of foreign Airstreams” (15-17) and the “local pets” (23), which are not native to the poem’s location. The valley is thus an ecosystem where the violent native species and the invasive species are all fighting each other for survival, which explains why they are “out for blood”. As the poet is directly compared to the valley, she is therefore also an ecosystem, on a smaller scale, with natural and foreign substances inside of her like how in a Julia Set, one can find the same patterns in its shape even after enlarging it. For the speaker, the natural is her “air / and fluids” (9-10), or her breathing and her blood, and the foreign is the “cigarettes and booze” (11) she consumes; they fight each other for control of her lungs and her kidneys. The invasive in both the ecosystem of the valley and of the poet have negative consequences. For the valley, “noxious weeds now overrun the parkland” (15), and the indigenous species are clearly on guard against the invasive species. These foreign plants and animals take over the valley, changing the ecosystem and damaging the native species, while being impossible to exterminate. For the poet, smoking causes damage to her body as “[she] cough[s] / from [her] lungs at night. Gasses and dust of one stupid thing after another” (13-14). Alcohol similarly harms her as “[she] look[s] for beauty and find[s] it, / floored by lichen’s radial grace and the incisive liquor / of juniper” (18-20); beauty is overturned by lichen, a symbiotic relationship between two species, which reminds the speaker of her own relationship with liquor of juniper, gin, showing that life’s wonders are dissimulated by this dependence to alcohol. Both the valley and the speaker are negatively impacted by the invasive organisms in their ecosystems.

Nature and humans reflect each other, particularly in their struggles. The speaker as the valley’s reflection, on a smaller scale, is illustrated through a comparison to a Julia Set’s patterns. This resemblance is then implemented by nature’s struggles against invasive species and its reflection in the body’s fight against addictive substances. Thus, Karen Solie illustrates through a mathematical simile between valley and speaker, and through the harm the foreign species and substances respectively bring to the valley and to the body, that nature and humans act as mirrors.

Work Cited

Solie, Karen. “Pastoral.” Open Wide a Wilderness: Canadian Nature Poems, edited by Nancy Holmes, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2009, pp.437.