Joseph Brodsky’s poem, “A Polar Explorer”, exposes a man without options in an unforgiving climate. What does a man choose when choice is not an option?
Formal Formality
Condensed into one eight-line stanza the poem is a model of economy. From the first line to the last line the poem throws dense imagistic punches, one after another, without taking time to allow the reader to breathe. The rapid-fire pace of the poem leaves no time for reflection and parallels the concept of a man on his last leg, literally.
Dog Food?
In the Arctic Circle a traveler’s huskies are one of their most valuable assets. The dogs are a formidable component to survival because they are one of the only reliable means of transport, but the character in “A Polar Explorer” is so devastated and hungry that “All the huskies are eaten” (line 1). The means of transportation and man’s best friend has become food. The only remaining option is to continue on foot, a perilous and dire setting. For an explorer to have to eat his own dogs is peeking over the horizon of cannibalism.
Nothing to Say
Writing is a therapeutic act, especially in times of grim contrition, but the explorer has “no space / left in the diary” (lines 1-2). When death is imminent people often use writing to express their thoughts and emotions giving their family and friends something to keep in their hearts.
This character does not have an outlet for his self-grief. The character is motionless in a time of needed movement, hungry in a time of needed energy, and alone in a time of needed comfort. The only solace for facing mortality are photos: one of his “spouse’s sepia-shaded face…[and] the snapshot of his sister” (lines 3-5). But as those photos burn in a fire the explorer’s “words scatter” (line 3). The explorer has eaten his means of transportation, and burned the frozen memories of “his kin”. What drives this character to stay alive?
Toppling Down
Throughout this dire situation it may be considered comforting that the explorer has reached “the highest possible latitude” (line 6). Unfortunately, reaching the top has caused the explorer to hit the bottom. Although the perceived bottom is only a precipice with miles of falling yet to come. The final two lines of the poem unleash a fury explaining the hopelessness compounded by helplessness that has led the explorer to eat his transportation and burn his memories because “like the silk stockings of a burlesque half-nude / queen, it climbs up his thigh: gangrene” (lines 7-8).
Framing Mortality
The poem is framed by death: in the first line “All the huskies are eaten” and in the last line the explorer’s thigh reveals “gangrene”. The poem is an analysis of hopelessness and helplessness that focuses on what is left when nothing remains. In this context it is both comical and disturbing that the gangrene is compared to “the silk stocking of a burlesque half-nude / queen”. Is it cheap sex that life recoils back into when all else is lost? No, it is gangrene that is compared to evils of cheap thrills because it is the apex of death at the “highest possible latitude”.
To Explore: the Journey
In Tennyson’s “Ulysses” the final line states, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”. This anthemic line is a motto for everyone who has been tested time and time again with failures piling up, but who never concedes to collapse. Brodsky’s “Polar Explorer” may have looked to Tennyson’s “Ulysses” for direction, but now there is no option to press on because everything comes to pass. When one has no choice then they are their choice, nothing. A character can become totally blindsided by circumstance. Is permanence so dismantling if one did all they could? The journey reveals the self and at least this explorer is making due with nothing.
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