Desert Island Poems: 'The Enemies' by Elizabeth Jennings

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The Enemies

Last night they came across the river and

Entered the city. Women were awake

With lights and food. They entertained the band,

Not asking what the men had come to take

Or what strange tongue they spoke

Or why they came so suddenly through the land.

Now in the morning all the town is filled

With stories of the swift and dark invasion;

The women say that not one stranger told

A reason for his coming. The intrusion

Was not for devastation:

Peace is apparent still on hearth and field.

Yet all the city is a haunted place.

Man meeting man speaks cautiously. Old friends

Close up the candid looks upon their face.

There is no warmth in hands accepting hands;

Each ponders, 'Better hide myself in case

Those strangers have set up their homes in minds

I used to walk in. Better draw the blinds

Even if the strangers haunt in my own house'.

'Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear' writes Seamus Heaney in 'Storm on the Island', circa 1969. These are prescient words from Heaney, and we seem to live in a time of fears, and huge nothings, perhaps now more than ever. AI, some would argue, is the hugest of huge nothings, but there are also many other uncertainties at play: the prospect of war, civil unrest, economic and political uncertainty. Among these, one of the most divisive issues of our time is immigration, with countries more intent on their own domestic affairs, and the rise of populism. The fear of the outsider is very much alive in countries around the world, particularly as economies are faltering and political parties look to find explanations to sway the voting public.

Written in the 1950s, the same decade prior to Heaney’s, Elizabeth Jennings’ poem taps into the anxiety and uncertainty of that time. We only need to look at the title, The Enemies, to pick up this sense of conflict. What I like about this poem is that, as opposed to making any kind of crude political point, Jennings takes a broader view of human nature and the idea of the enemy itself, and how communities of humans innately seem to distrust outsiders, even if, as in this poem, and mostly in real life, they cause no harm, and indeed seek refuge some dictatorships and the like. It’s a well-balanced exploration of a complicated topic. More importantly, in titling the poem ‘The Enemies’ as opposed to ‘The Migrants’, which would narrow the poem’s interpretations, she opens up more complex philosophical questions about the nature of ‘enemies’ themselves, what they are and how humans define themselves against others. This is a not a poem which simply says: ‘migration is good’, or ‘migration is bad’, but rather, migration (which is not only what this poem is about) is complex. And this is because humans are complex. In my humble opinion, this is not only what the best poems do but why poetry itself is the best art form for exploring such nuance.

And as I’ve just mentioned, ‘The Enemies’ become metaphors not just for migrants or invaders, but for new ways of thinking that challenge the conventions of a community.

The Beginning

The poem starts with an outlandish bit of enjambment with the ‘and’ hanging over the line quite dramatically. We might argue this is a bit of a melodramatic line-ending, and there would be a good case for that, but I suppose Jennings uses it here to emphasise the moment before they ‘entered the city’. This phrase is given its own space and time in the opening and elevates its significance, almost as if there was a moment before the invasion and a moment after it. A similar effect happens with ‘The women were awake’ which suggests a vulnerability, as the phrase is exposed at the end of the line just as the women may have been exposed at the moment of invasion. However, Jennings then shifts the mood by writing ‘with light and food’ suggesting the women were welcoming to the outsiders, and this continues in the next lines as they did not ask ‘what the men had come to take’ or about their ‘strange tongue’ or ‘why they had come so suddenly through the land.’ Jennings suggests that the women’s first instinct is to welcome the foreigners and bring them into the community. The adverbial phrase ‘so suddenly’ is an interesting choice here, and chimes later on in the poem with the idea of the ‘swift and dark invasion’. The suddenness, though, suggests an urgency, which Jennings never explains and leaves ambiguous: were they escaping from a war, or were they attacking? We never find out, but this isn’t really important, as what Jennings is focused upon is the reaction of the residents.

The Middle

The second stanza shifts to the morning, and shows Jennings to be a master of controlling time zones in her poems, making the most not only with line breaks but stanza breaks. The fact the town is ‘filled’ with stories suggests that despite the women’s initial welcome, the wider community has already started to fill with questions and suspicions of the intrusion. And this is all despite ‘the intrusion/ was not for devastation.’ We note how Jennings takes an individual line for ‘was not for devastation’ to emphasise the peaceful nature of the foreigners. The use of ‘devastation’ is noteworthy, as opposed to destruction, and it’s at this point we notice the rhyme scheme and how it rhymes with ‘invasion’. Moreover, it puts the invasion into perspective, in that there was no devastation, just a sense of change which unsettled the residents. She then reiterates this with the last line of the second stanza ‘Peace is apparent still on hearth and field.’ The word ‘still’ is important here as it suggests that will change in the last stanza, which it does.

The End (Part I)

In the last stanza we get another shift, with ‘Yet all the city is a haunted place.’ And what’s interesting about this poem is how Jennings makes the most of every turn, line break and stanza break to surprise the reader or move the poem on in some meaningful or unforeseen way. And here, we see it in how despite the peaceful nature of the invasion and the welcoming of the women, and lack of devastation, there is still something insidious and pervasive about this invasion that has gripped the community psychologically as ‘man meeting man speaks cautiously.’ ‘There is no warmth in hands accepting hands’ also suggests a change in mood from the beginning, and how quickly the community has been challenged or felt threatened by the foreigners. The verb ‘ponders’ in ‘Each ponders’ also suggests the community has become more introspective in the wake of the invasion.

The End (Part II)

But what’s most interesting is the reported speech which runs over the last three lines, which by any poem’s standards is quite a long quote to finish upon. What’s stranger is the abstract and metaphorical language the speaker uses. The speaker suggests they must ‘hide myself’ and withdraw in case ‘the strangers have set up their homes in minds/ I used to walk in.’ This is an odd phrase and I have to wonder at times whether Jennings rather regretted the rhyme scheme she adopted at the start as there’s a sense that she’s rather hemmed in by it at the end, as opposed to freed by it. We can see this with the rather clunky, stretched rhymes of ‘field’ and ‘told’ in the second stanza, and ‘house’ and ‘case’ in the third, compared to some of her other stronger rhymes such as ‘face’, ‘case’, and ‘place’. Nevertheless, she has definitely created a surprising, and strange and cold ending with a lingering sense of mystery about the effect the foreigners have had on the townspeople.

The Last Word

The fact the speaker talks about the foreigners not just setting up homes, and not just setting up homes in minds, but ‘setting up homes in minds I used to walk in.’ is really quite bizarre and almost surreal. The last line, however, sheds more light on proceedings with ‘Better draw the blinds/ even if the strangers haunt in my own house.’ And it’s here we can see more clearly what Jennings may be really getting at, which is that the foreigners, peaceful as they are, don’t represent a physical threat to the community, and not only threaten to change their customs and conventions, but also their way of thinking, by challenging the status quo. So, at the end of the poem, the real migrants become metaphors for otherness, or a challenge to one’s beliefs, or suppressed feelings or desires. The actual invasion of the town, therefore, for Jennings, is almost beside the point, as what’s most pressing is the individual’s need to not be challenged or confront their inner selves, instead deciding ‘Better draw the blinds…’

The Verdict

This is by no means a perfect poem, largely due to the aforementioned clunky rhyme scheme, but it goes to show that a poem doesn't have to be perfect to draw us in as readers and create a lasting sense of ambiguity and mystery when dealing with the complex topics of our day.