James Armstrong on “American Toad”
The poem “American Toad” was written during a week in June when Trump was giving a rally in Duluth. My wife and I were staying at a cabin near Two Harbors and one day we hiked the trail that ascends the Split Rock River gorge. It is probably my favorite trail on the North Shore because the river tumbles over bedrock in cataract after cataract under steep, cedar-hung cliffs. There is a scenic turnout every few steps, giving the hiker a one spectacular vista after another. The hike always reminds me of that ancient Chinese scroll which Gary Snyder writes about in Mountains and Rivers Without End: the slowly unrolling landscape of “a web of waters streaming over rocks, / air misty but not raining . . . .” Snyder describes how in the painting “The path comes down along a lowland stream / slips behind boulders and leafy hardwoods, / reappears in a pine grove.” It was my feeling that this hiking trail in the Superior Uplands, with its wooden stairways and simple log bridges crossing tributary streams functioned very much like Zen scripture. Each little turnout, overlooking a roaring falls or a rooster-tailing rapids, was an opportunity to contemplate the sublime energies of the world. To quote Snyder again:
Step back and gaze again at the land:
it rises and subsides—
ravines and cliffs like waves of blowing leaves—
stamp the foot, walk with it, clap! turn,
the creeks come in, ah!
strained through boulders,
mountains walking on the water,
water ripples every hill.
No wonder I always feel as though a hike on the Split Rock is akin to a religious rite. This particular hike was noteworthy for the wildlife as well—garter snakes, white admiral butterflies, and at one point beside the path a large toad, looking rather pleased with himself.
All during the hike I had been conscious of the President’s rally, happening just down the road. Trump’s bloviating spirit, his unctuous pandering to the worst instincts in his fan base seemed to hang over everything. When we got back to the cabin and I opened my journal, I thought of the toad; as I described it the comparisons to Trump seemed striking. However, as I revised and tightened the poem, I found it difficult to retain any overt reference to the President. Having him in the poem threatened to turn it into a cheap allegory. I realized that the toad should not be reduced to a symbol. For one thing, I wanted to resist Trump’s own belief that everything should be about him. For another, the toad was really quite fascinating and should be given its own existence, free from our human foolishness. But I hope the poem still gives off a slight whiff of politics.