Despite its brevity and simplicity, "No Images" by William Waring Cuney (1926) delves deeply into many of humanities shortcomings and civilizations empty promises. It starkly contrasts two extremes, one of simple, natural beauty and the other a grim concrete world devoid of nature where one cannot even see their own value and innate greatness. While I think the light is focused on the plight of an ethnic woman who's hopeless fate is to wash dishes I believe the fundamental messages resonate with anyone disillusioned with their life in the contemporary world we have built around ourselves.
Once put into the context of the 1920's the poem becomes strikingly more poignant and heroically subversive. The noblest thing any art form can achieve is to bring about awareness and change for the benefit of the oppressed, the hopeless, the defenseless, and those who face seemingly overwhelming obstacles. In a time when some races were idiotically seen as less than human and not deserving of equal rights this poem would have taken courage to write which imbues it with additional merit.
Beyond race we have forgotten our inherent naturalistic divinity as a species. Our perception of the world has become clouded and the way we see ourselves has been compromised. The value, majesty, and necessity of nature has been shrouded by the great and heavy blankets of intentions corrupted by greed and terminal selfishness. Clear and honest introspection has been replace with self loathing, doubt, and endless, anxious wanting. The fallacious empty craving cannot be satiated and in the end consumes only our hope which in turn makes us so desperate that we lose sight of what is truly important. Such confused and broken creatures fall prey easily to the whims of the exploitative.
Flaws and failings are draped upon her by civilization, they are clingy and persistent distortions intended to weaken her and make her controllable, pliable so that she buys what they tell her, works when they tell her, thinks what they tell her. She is, however, so much more, and her purpose is far greater than a miniscule gear in a machine that grinds everything in its path as it lumbers blindly, without looking to a future beyond its own growth.
By contrast the authors fundamental message of empowerment is not delivered to, or bequeathed upon the woman by and outside force or by someone else. It simply states that her strength, power, and beauty were always there, within her. The idea that you don't need someone or something else to make you strong, that you already are strong, even if you don't realize it, is a message more powerful than any other. It is a natural part of her, all she needs to do is become conscious of it, grasp it, and forge a new fate of her choosing just as a blacksmith shapes hard steel into a needed tool.
From our purest potential existence, without shame and in communion with bountiful nature the author transports us to the modern world where we have stripped the earth bare and replaced its resplendent flora with asphalt and mundane jobs whose rewards are but more meaningless work. The juxtaposition of these disparate concepts is especially effective.I believe that despite the author pointing out the fact that we have lost our way as a culture and as a species his overwhelmingly powerful message resonates with our inherent beauty, potential, and sublime kinship with nature. In addition, this work has made me realize that if a picture is worth a thousand words then a poem is worth a thousand pictures.
-Peter Ochabski
Cited Works:
Cuney, William. No Images. 1926

No Images
She does not know
Her beauty,
She thinks her brown body
Has no glory.
If she could dance
Naked,
Under the palm trees
And see her image in the river
She would know.
But there are no palm trees
On the street,
And dish water gives back no images.
William Waring Cuney (1926)