echoing "Dadaist randomness” (Reisman, 2012).
In “An apocalypse for three Voices” he tells us
“the dead awoke” from the sea “the final waves”.
Here Spicer, evokes the shamanic ritual and
resurrects the dead “Awaken” -just to hear their
voices… Orpheus is often considered to be the
original westernized portrayal of the shaman and
Spicer entitles four of his poems to him (e.g.
Orpheus in hell, Orpheus after Eurydice, Orpheus’
song to Apollo and Orpheus in Athens”). He even
exclaims that he himself is Orpheus “Then I, a
singer and hunter, fished in streams too deep for
love” (Gizzi & Killian, 2008). The tone here is one
of suffering. Often the figure of the shaman is
cited in literature as suffering or being afflicted in
some way and often this is the source of their
calling or endowment with special abilities. Spicer
yearns for this spiritual calling.
He speaks of Whitman as existing in "a world
without magic and without God" subject to "the
cruelty of shadows, the cruelty of spirits". Here
Whitman, like Spicer is a lone shaman teetering
on the edge of the abyss. In "Ode to Walt
Whitman" he speaks of Whitman, "You gave a cry
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