It's been my feeling that poets express their contempt of
poetry by continuing to write poems about poetry. This isn't the garden variety
poetaster at an open reading who furiously scribbles breathless , broken lined
manifestos about the responsibilities and burden of being a poet in a blind and
cruel world; this is poetry as Priesthood, a habit of thinking many who have
lapsed from their own religions and seek to imprint their inadequate sense of
how the universe functions behind the veil on the entirety of poetry itself.
Those blessed (and burdened) with the gift of seeing things as they really are
become the cliche's greatest promoter. There is no ridding the world of these
good folks.It's the serious poets, the ones with books and reviews of
their work, who work teaching poetry survey courses and conduct workshops.
During my time as member of Slate's belated Poems Fray discussion board, where
a good many bright discussants would parse, yay or nay, poetry editor Robert
Pinsky's choice for Slate's Poem of the week, I noticed a rash of poems that
could not back away from the urge to invoke of some sort; the rationalizations
in the critical jargon was rich and insightful in how many of us argue for
something without telling anyone how any of it is any good for us, but it never
seemed to me to be more than a go-to move for a poet who is stumped at any
ironic turning point.
A poet begins the poem talking about being a poet wrestling
with reality by poetic means and at the end of linking associations, one after
the other, in that essaying forth of getting a peak beyond the mere appearances
of the world, some goes awry in the speculation and dreamy thinking that
contradicts everything and lo!, the poet finds out that he or she has been
relying upon a literary form that will not reveal the thing-ness of things no matter
how effervescent the poetry is. We cannot escape the prison house of language,
the poet finds, the music swells, the sun sets on the poet as he or she grows
cold and melancholy in their realization that their craft is useless for
anything other than remind themselves that the senses are fallible. The end.
Every defense has been given
within the confines of the poem itself, not in any discussion happening in room, at a table,
filled with people who’ve read and seek
to discover what is they felt, what they thought, what the thought about how
they felt. The written is written to
short circuit our emotional with the verses that have been read—our discussions
are guided along a primrose path and little spontaneity of response, no honestly felt and strongly
argued exclamation of “this sucks phallic verbs “. What it all means not longer matters, not on
a group level, not as a pastiche of responses culled from a brain storming of
interpretations, not from a sudden image
of a time formerly locked away in the deeper recesses of memory that now
emerges again to haunt you and further stain your expectations of some kind of
renewal through right living and solemn vows. Worse, we discover that may none
of it mattered anyway.
Many stanzas, rhymed, unrhymed, irregular, evocative
and vague , have changed nothing in the world. What it
has done is make being alive in those naked minutes when dread and fuck off panic nearly overwhelms you .
Poetry, the art of the allusive line and image that seem to be about something,makes being in this cold
light of fear bareable for another minute,another hour, until the fear slumbers
agan and you are something like sane again, smiling, eager for breakfast and a
walk in the sun, or at leasta couple of
long distance phone calls.
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