Tasker Norcross

“The Three Tav­erns: A Book of Poems” by Edwin Arling­ton Robin­son includes the poem “Tasker Nor­cross”, a nar­ra­tive that unfolds through a dia­logue main­ly between the speak­er and a char­ac­ter named Fer­gu­son. The poem opens with a reflec­tion on the types of peo­ple inhab­it­ing a town, cat­e­go­rized into three groups: the good, the not-so-good, and Tasker Nor­cross, a fig­ure who seems to exist out­side these clas­si­fi­ca­tions due to his unique nature, even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to the asser­tion that now only two types remain, imply­ing Nor­cross’s depar­ture from life.

Fer­gu­son, who has phi­los­o­phized about life and its peo­ple, shares his thoughts on Nor­cross, a man dis­tin­guished by his dif­fer­ence and per­ceived lack of human­i­ty. Nor­cross’s home is described vivid­ly, pre­sent­ing it as an old, white, box-like struc­ture sur­round­ed by too many trees, sit­u­at­ed in a land­scape con­sist­ing of a road, rail­road, riv­er, hills, and more trees. This set­ting serves as a metaphor for Nor­cross’s iso­la­tion and the pub­lic’s detached curios­i­ty about him, hint­ing at a life observed from a dis­tance but not deeply under­stood or engaged with.

Nor­cross’s life is depict­ed as one of pro­found iso­la­tion and dis­con­nec­tion, not just from the com­mu­ni­ty but also from the expe­ri­ences that define human joy and suf­fer­ing. He pos­sess­es wealth but lacks the joy of inter­ac­tion and con­tri­bu­tion that comes from shar­ing it mean­ing­ful­ly. His exis­tence is paint­ed as a cycle of know­ing and not-know­ing, see­ing with­out under­stand­ing, and liv­ing with­out expe­ri­enc­ing, a state that Fer­gu­son argues is worse than not liv­ing at all. Nor­cross is por­trayed as a man who, aware of the world’s beau­ty and com­plex­i­ty, is trapped in his inca­pac­i­ty to con­nect with it, lead­ing to a life devoid of ful­fill­ment and pur­pose.

The dia­logue shifts to explore themes of per­cep­tion, val­ue, and the essence of life, con­trast­ing the mun­dane and the pro­found, the seen and the unseen. Nor­cross’s inabil­i­ty to derive plea­sure from art, music, and oth­er forms of beau­ty high­lights his dis­con­nec­tion from the essen­tial human expe­ri­ences that give life mean­ing. The nar­ra­tive con­cludes with a reflec­tion on the para­dox of know­ing too much and too lit­tle at the same time, sug­gest­ing that Nor­cross’s tragedy lies not in his phys­i­cal cir­cum­stances but in his exis­ten­tial iso­la­tion, his soul’s inabil­i­ty to sing with the ‘kings of song’ or to see the world as any­thing more than a desert of monot­o­ny.

Through “Tasker Nor­cross,” Robin­son delves into exis­ten­tial themes, explor­ing the depths of human lone­li­ness, the quest for mean­ing, and the trag­ic beau­ty of life viewed from the periph­ery of under­stand­ing and con­nec­tion.