Heany's Poem

This poem has a frustrated and disappointed tone. The title of the poem, "From the Frontier of Writing" suggests that the speaker arrived at the frontier of writing and left unsatisfied with the procedure he was subject to. I believe he is speaking of the editing process and the criticism that comes with being a writer. The "tightness" in the first line refers to the writer’s confinement to the conventional way of writing and to the expectations of the editors and critics. Moving or driving in a car represents writing and rewriting while the checkpoints met along the way represent editors and critics. The process is painful and referred to as "pure interrogation." The writer is "a little emptier, a little spent" after the first round of criticism. However, he fears the critics and is subdued by them; he feels "that quiver in the self,/ subjugated, yes, and obedient." He does not even bother resisting because he knows that the critics and editors are the ones with the power represented by the soldiers with the guns. At the second check point, the soldiers are "repeating/ data about [him]." The word “data” is very impersonal and dehumanizes the writer. Everybody is waiting for him to mess up so they can jump in and mark him as a failure. The writer finally emerges "from behind the waterfall" where everything is obscured and blurry. He has been criticized and his work has been edited and now all is finished. The entire editing process is now only a fading memory as the soldiers are "receding/ like tree shadows into the polished windscreen."