In the analysis of poetry it is essential to consider context. A single poem published in an anthology, therefore, has different implications than if the same poem were published in a magazine or, say, recited as part of a eulogy. To a certain extent, then, the consequences of context are out of an author's control. It is rather the individual who chooses to place a poem within a given context, most often an editor, who dictates its meaning. That being said, it is the nature of poetry, or arguably all art, that allows for this variability and as such even an editor's intentions may be obscured. Additionally, independent factors may contribute to a contextual change for a published poem. The final issue of The Owl, published in the winter of 1923, offers an interesting example of how verse can not only be altered by context but, moreover, communicate the objectives of an editor more so than a poet.
In the foreword of the inaugural issue of The Owl published in May, 1919, the editors insist that their magazine, "has no politics, leads no new movement, and is not even the organ for any particular generation". While it is true that unlike other "little magazines" The Owl maintained a decidedly credo free approach to publication with no manifestos or overtly agenda laden editorial prose, it would be mistaken to believe that there was, consequently, no unification of theme, particularly within individual issues. The last issue of the short-lived magazine, for example, contains many poems which specifically dwell on the topics of lost love or death. Given that The Owl was terminating its operations, these poems, however, take on secondary meaning, ostensibly serving as the editors' lamentations for their own loss.
Thomas Hardy's poem "The Missed Train" offers the first example of a poem which can be seen as indicative of the editors' regret over their folding magazine. Like most of the subsequent poems in the issue, "The Missed Train" is about loss, in this case the loss that inevitably occurs with the passage of time. Naturally, there is no reason to believe that Hardy wrote this poem in response to the transitory nature of small-press magazine publishing, but the last stanza in particular seems imbued with the precise emotions that those involved with The Owl would have felt, knowing that this would be their last offering to the public:
"Years, years as grey seas,
Truly, now stretch between! less and less
Shrink the visions then great in me. — Yes,
Then in me. Now in these."
If taken as an elegy for the magazine, the last lines especially seem interesting. Although short-lived, The Owl did publish over a span of several years, and yet while they were not able to sustain their "visions" for the magazine, many other similar publications were able to succeed.
The idea that the failure of The Owl is manifested in their peers' success speaks to a possible perception by the editors' that theirs is a public failure, one which ultimately cannot be felt in isolation. This idea is likewise apparent in the sonnet "Tracked" by Enoch Soames. "Tracked" is a dark poem that portrays a character who is attempting to burn the evidence of his personal shame. Though he is able to do so partially, at least, from himself, he nevertheless is left with a foreboding sense. Ultimately, this sense is manifested when the character, "[kneels] down, a man most loathe to die, / And [peers] through the key-hole of the door, / [sees] there the pupil of another eye". As The Owl is exists in the public sphere, the editors thereof cannot live out their misfortune privately. Not only will continuing magazines serve as a reminder to their inability to sustain, but, furthermore, they must endure the scrutiny of the reading public.
Primarily though, it is the mere feeling of impotence that foundering precipitates. In "Full Moon" by Robert Graves, a poem which superficially deals with lost love but seems germane as well to the loss of The Owl, a feeling of futility accompanies the speaker's nostalgia. Interestingly, Graves uses an owl as one of his metaphors in the poem:
"A tedious owlet cried;
The nightingale above my head
With this or that replied,
Like man and wife who nightly keep
Inconsequent debate in sleep
As they dream side by side."
As this metaphor of idle communication among birds mirrors the speaker's own inability to communicate with his lost love, parallels for The Owl can be drawn from both as well. From the editors' perspective, as the vocalizing owlet, they are unable to effectively communicate with their readership leading to their demise. The metaphor of sleep emphasizes perhaps that while their is a seeming reciprocity between publisher and reader, fundamentally the two cannot serve one another's needs. Thus the editor's beloved publication disappears: "And love went by upon the wind / as though it had not been".
It is difficult to say whether the editor's of The Owl did in fact select the poems for their final issue, consciously or sub-consciously, based on their own feelings of loss. Indeed there is no editor's note to suggest whether it was then known that this would be the last offering by the magazine. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to offer a reading of these poems that considers at least their coincidental subtext. Moreover, the potential for unanticipated contextual change and the subsequent alteration of meaning, are further evidence that a work of art is a living thing not controllable by either artist or editor.
