Myrrhbearers

The angel also said unto them,

you are witnesses
to a truth beyond anything
you have been taught to understand;
this has been shown to you
because no man will believe.

Someone must know the truth.

What to do with this knowledge,
I cannot guide you;
from the wrath of those who lack faith,
I cannot hide you.
Know that this is a blessing,
though it may seem a curse.

Someone must know the truth.

Your myrrh is not needed here
—only your faithful witness;
go in peace, to love and serve;
your Friend you will see again soon.

With a blinding flash of light,
the glowing angel was gone
—and they were alone in the tomb
with the cold, hard truth.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

This Business of Poetry, Part 10: Concluding Remarks and Welcome to National Poetry Month!

Ten installments of a free on-line poetry course is probably enough. Now that we have entered the month of April, it is National Poetry Month, and time to get back to the writing practice!

I would like to make some concluding remarks, as I bid you adieu, to continue on your journey with words.

This is my first observation: no one can really teach you how to write poetry. Yes, there are many forms and there are lots of mechanics to the many forms, but these can be learned by reading poetry and by studying poetry manuals. (Whenever you see photographs of poets and writers, these images are almost always captured in a room filled with books and papers—they must be reading a lot!) Most poets have an internal music and rhythm that either conforms or defies predefined styles; either way, no one can tell you what you are doing is wrong. Refining and reorganization can be suggested, and I highly recommend you do this with all your work.

Next, the enjoyment of poetry is so extremely subjective that you should never consider you are writing for others—the most authentic work is that which you write for yourself, rather than to try appealing to a public that may never materialize. My personal notion is that poetry evolves from an individual’s deep interaction with the world of experience.

Throughout history, poetry was a pursuit rather than a profession. Poets sent their poems to friends in letters or self-published small collections that would be given as gifts. A few people were able to establish a readership, but the work of most was not available to “the public” until long after the author’s death.

Today, many people have the idea that if they write poetry, they will be able to make a bunch of money or garner attention for themselves. This seldom happens, but if it does, the point of poetry is completely lost, because it is no longer a poet’s conversation with the experiential self.

MFA writing programs have created academic enclaves that tend to be ever so slightly elite or cultish. When you consider that the greatest poets of most ages never took a degree in the art of creative writing, it all looks a little silly and seems to have evolved for the sole purpose of keeping “professional” poets gainfully employed. The writing that results from the academic approach can seem, though it is not always the case,… well, academic, if not sterile or contrived—in order to appeal either to a general public (that may wonder, not knowing any better, if it need appreciate such work, particularly if it does not resonate with a truth that the average reader can sense) or to writers within the enclave.

The other end of the spectrum from the MFA program is the Poetry Slam; this is a live entertainment contest, held at a performance venue. Winners are chosen based on the judges' tastes, audience reactions, and the poets' "performances". These can be raucous affairs, far removed from the demeanor of a more traditional poetry reading. My father attended one recently; he was absolutely appalled. One woman read a poem my father thought was well crafted and beautiful, but she was shouted off the stage. The victor in this slam presented work that had popular appeal, but the work was rough and somewhat crude.

Perhaps there is a lesson in all this. I would say that poetry does not belong in any kind of ghetto. This is not to say that a writer might not become part of a movement, but the movement should never define the work or diminish the individual poet’s accomplishment.

If all you ever do is create a journal of your work, you have achieved something great. You are, after all, writing primarily to please yourself.

Should you decide to enter contests, you might get your work placed in publications, perhaps even win a small honorarium from time to time. Don’t make this, however, the object of your writing. Don’t be afraid to self-publish; this is the time-honored way for poets to expand their readership beyond family and friends. Here again, this should never be the object of your writing, and do not expect to really make any money.

Your poetry should be valuable to you because it is a testimony to your engagement with and observations of the world. (Off the top of your head, can you think of a person whose old personal journals have become published and recognized to be of value in modern times? I can: Leonardo da Vinci; a poet, a painter, a sculptor, an inventor and theorist—a renaissance man for all times!) Think of your writing as a gift that you give to yourself before all others, although you will share it more and more, as time goes on. Beyond this, who knows what can happen?

Your work amounts to the care you have lavished in conversation with yourself on your life’s journey. For that reason alone, it is priceless.

For now, best of everything to you, and WRITE ON!

This Business of Poetry, Part 9: Poet Perspectives on Poetry and Poets

So, we have been plying, even playing in, the desert places, living, observing, breathing, hoping to be inspired, developing our practice of making a daily note and jotting down ideas. This all seems well and good, but is this worth our effort?

Let us hear from poets about writing and the role of the poet.

Kenneth Rexroth, on making money as a poet:

None of us makes a living by poetry, although we think it one of the most important activities man has ever had or could ever hope to have, as long as society remains as it is.

T.S. Eliot, about the mind of a poet:

The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.

Dana Gioia on the compromise of poetry as art for poetry as job security:

Only a philistine would romanticize the blissfully banished artistic poverty of yesteryear. But a clear-eyed observer must also recognize that by opening the poet's trade to all applicants and by employing writers to do something other than write, institutions have changed the social and economic identity of the poet from artist to educator. In social terms the identification of poet with teacher is now complete. The first question one poet now asks another upon being introduced is "Where do you teach?" The problem is not that poets teach. The campus is not a bad place for a poet to work. It's just a bad place for all poets to work. Society suffers by losing the imagination and vitality that poets brought to public culture. Poetry suffers when literary standards are forced to conform with institutional ones.

Mary Oliver on what it means to be a poet:

Poetry isn’t a profession, it’s a way of life. It’s an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, commenting that poetry is a language of philosophy:

No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrancy of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.

Jack Gilbert, on the dilemma of modern poets.

A lot of poets don’t have any poems to write. After their first book, what are they going to do? They can’t keep saying their hearts are broken. They start to write poems about childhood. Then what do they do? Some of it is just academic poetry—they learn how to write the poem perfectly. But I don’t think anybody should be criticized because their taste is different from mine. Such poems are extraordinarily deft. There’s a lot of art in them. But I don’t understand where the meat is. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this kind of poetry. It won’t change my life, so why should I read it? Why should I write it?

By the time some writers—particularly poets—are twenty-seven or twenty-eight they’ve often used up the germinal quality that is their writing, the thing that is their heart. Not for the great poets, but for many poets this is true. The inspiration starts to wane. Many have learned enough to cover that with devices or technique or they just go back and write the same stories about their childhood over and over. It’s why so much poetry feels artificial.

This is just a small sampling of comments on This Business of Writing Poetry. There is much more to be said, much more to be read, more to explore and experience, as a reader and writer of poetry.

I would just add that you should be true and authentic to yourself in all your writing—this is what will ultimately make your work meaningful to you and to your readers.

____________

Eliot, Thomas Stearns. “Tradition and the Individual Talent”, 1919.

Fay, Sarah. “The Art of Poetry No. 91”, The Paris Review interviews, 2005.

Gioia, Dana. Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture, “Can Poetry Matter?” Graywolf, 1992.

Oliver, Mary. Georgia Review, Winter 1981, p. 733.

Rexroth, Kenneth. “The Function of Poetry and the 
Place of the Poet in Society”, 1936. http://www.bopsecrets.org/rexroth/essays/poetry-society.htm

Ephemera

I have been reading a wonderful collection of lectures made by e.e. cummings at Harvard. I have only read a small sampling of cummings’ poetry, but I ran across this small Atheneum publication of what cummings called “six nonlectures” (reprinted by permission from Harvard University Press), delivered as the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard in 1953.

The lectures talk about cummings’ life and development as an artist. He makes very interesting observations about the role of the poet and trends that he was seeing in the society of his times.

I have been enjoying this small pocket book, but today I am writing about the little surprise I found folded within the later pages of the book. On mint green writing paper, someone had written a poem, using a fountain pen with blue ink. There is no title at the top and neither has the poem’s author identified her or himself.

Here is the poem, in its entirety:

The weather has thrown off its shawl
of wind, of cold, and of rain,
and it’s clothed in garments
of clear and radiant sun.

There isn’t a beast or bird
which in its way doesn’t sing or shout
the weather has thrown off its shawl
of wind, of cold and of rain.

River, fountain and stream
carry prettily
pieces of gold coin,
each one dresses itself anew;
The weather has thrown off its shawl
of wind, of cold and of rain.

What a delight, to have found this little book, in the early days of Spring, only to discover a little poem tucked within its folds!

I cannot help but make the observation that technology does not account for such delights as these.

If you are the author of this poem, let me know who you are—I would love to have a conversation with you about Spring and poetry, fountain pens and books!

Unequal Still

     ~ in memoriam Adrienne Rich (1929 - 2012)

Since the beginning of time,
no matter what socio-political clime,
it has ever been man’s pleasure
to count women among his treasure.

Rendered thus into objects apart,
women, who continue to balance art
with work and home, still yearn
for rights men took but did not earn.

Modern mores tend to deceive
about equities the sexes receive;
women still bear brunt of labor,
and at home have little time to savor
any “accomplishment” of “equal rights;”
men still demand that women’s sights
remain unpaid at hearth and home,
when women might prefer to roam
beyond the care of men and babies,
beyond battered promises and maybes.

The few gals granted a turn at the helm
work for less than men who underwhelm,
while men control the gates and are better paid,
perhaps even smiling at small tokens made.

From this first great division of class
come all the others perceived en masse;
as long as the lie of “equality” makes so little noise,
we will mind and mine the gaps of social inequipoise.

©  2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen

Though times have changed, situations have not. While things may be better in the United States than in other countries, equality is something that is little more than a dream for women, people of any ethnic group that is not the dominant one in the region, for people of different faith traditions and people whose sexual orientation differs in anyway from heterosexuality. In the United States, women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, even if women perform the same job and outperform their male counterparts.

Two stories from my local newspaper attest to the challenges that still face women:

How women, girls are faring in education, jobs in state (CA)

IBM CEO is a woman; will she be able to wear the Masters Tournament Green Jacket?

If the double standard continues in the area of gender, how can we ever truly address the double standards elsewhere in the social spectrum?

The truth is clear = each individual is unique, but as a whole humanity, we are equal. Human thinking and acting needs to evolve in a way that this truth of our equality is apparent in every life.

Please feel free to comment. Discourse is the only avenue through which change is possible. Silence supports the status quo. 

This Business of Poetry, Part 8: What To Do In The Desert While You Await Inspiration

SO, here you are and the river is dry, now. You had tons of great material flow out onto the pages, and now there is nothing. Arrrgh! This is frustrating and unavoidable.

What does one do, in this situation? (You realize, of course, that this is the single most-asked question with regard to creative endeavor…) Well, I have a short, one-word answer that I can expand upon:

Live!

Ha, ha, cute joke, say you, what should we really do?

(sigh) So, I guess the expansion is required, and I had better supply one.

Even when you feel like nothing decent is extant in your brain, you should try to write something every day. Don’t kill yourself if you don’t like what you see. You might even pull out those poems that you haven’t been able to finish, for one reason or another, and rework those. If reworking gets irritating, stop and move on to other things, such as:

Hiking
reading
attending concerts
having coffee or tea with friends
housework
gardening
discuss current events with someone

One should fully engage in all the commonplace activities of life. This, after all, is the seed bed for all of life’s inspiring moments. Engaging in activities fully and wholeheartedly is about as inspired as it gets, as any zen practitioner would say.

I alluded to the word practice just now, and also in the last entry in this series. All of your writing is a practice, of sorts. Your creative energy and outpouring is all done in a specific medium, with a specific sort of way that you go about doing the activity, but this is an exercise of the mind, just as physical activity exercises the body, chants, prayers, songs or other devotions exercise the spirit. Each and everything that you do and experience, feel, see or hear is part of your existential databank. I cannot think of any better practice than expanding your horizons with ever more experiences.  Listening is a good part of such practice.

It is always good to take a break, to treat yourself to a change of scene. Any activity that feeds your senses is bound to open you to new channels of thought.

Music in the Margins

Lost in the margins
of my own story
and among the symbols
from your divine eye,
what shall become of me?

Seemingly between worlds,
by halves and sevens,
guided by feathers and stones,
sands from time’s shores
and infinite music,
this is where I breathe.

The music calls me,
beckoning me to hear,
then to follow the traces
of your flowing presence,
the song of my soul.

© 2012 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen