Poetry in "A Trick of the Light"

One of the fascinating aspects of Louise Penny's Three Pines mysteries is the way poetry is used in each.  Sometimes, as in Still Life, the first novel in the series, Penny's use of poetry is extensive.  Sometimes, as in A Trick of the Light (2011), the poetry is less dominant.

A Trick of the Light references two poems that add to the richness of the book -- "Up" by Margaret Atwood and "Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith.  Each helps develop character in its own way.

Famous Canadian poet Margaret Atwood is probably referenced more in the Three Pines mysteries than is any other, so it's not surprising that "Up" is used in A Trick of the Light.  Only the last stanza of Atwood's poem is highlighted in the novel:

"Now here's a good one:
You're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?"

Harm and forgiveness (or lack of it) are key to A Trick of the Light.  They are central to the murder in the novel.  In addition, many of the key characters in the book need forgiveness for their acts or need to find a way to forgive others.

Atwood's stanza is particularly used in relation to Inspector Gamache and Ruth Zardo, the old, bitter, but nationally famous poet in the mysteries.

When a group of the women in the village set out to do a healing ritual for Lillian, the murder victim, Ruth "quoted one of her poems" -- namely, Atwood's last stanza from "Up"  (p. 113).  Late in the novel, Gamache quotes the first three lines of the stanza to Ruth, who asks how the last two lines apply to him (253).  Gamache seems to have these lines in mind later, when he thinks to himself about Suzanne:  "She hasn't forgiven . . . At least, not completely (p. 284).  Finally, when Gamache is going around the room person by person before identifying Lillian's murderer, Ruth thinks of Atwood's last two lines again (p. 324).

Where "Up" is directly tied to the main themes of A Trick of the Light, the last stanza of Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" applies directly to Clara, an artist who has finally become famous even as her marriage to her artist husband Peter is falling apart.  Penny uses the last three lines of Smith's last stanza to reveal Clara's character and emotions:

"(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning."

The novel opens with Clara thinking about Smith's lines (pp. 1, 5).  Terrified as she prepares to meet people at the first exhibition of her art, she applies these lines to herself.

Later Clara thinks of this poem again, this time remembering the first two lines:

"Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:   (p. 124)

In this context Clara is thinking of her husband Peter and how he is becoming dead to her.

At the end of the novel, Clara quotes from Smith's poem again.  But this time, she applies it once again to herself.  She has been dead in many ways, pretending to a happiness she has not felt.  Now she determines she will be herself, preparing for a total change in her life (p. 315).

Only two poems play an important part in A Trick of the Light, but each plays an important role.  Margaret Atwood's "Up" is connected to the major themes of the novel, while Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" helps to give emotional resonance to Clara's growth as a human being.