I’m a bit tired of hearing how Art is good for us, good for civilization, good for the expansion of our souls, even good for diversity. If you take Art like a pill, you’ll be a better person. You’ll grow more tolerant, more thoughtful, more sensitive. What art-maker wants to hear that? That kind of rhetoric erects a wall of reasonableness, of usefulness, to keep the unruly out. Really, who makes poems with the intention of saving the world or even saving the elephants? People make poems because, well, because. The impetus comes from whence I do not know, although in my case I can trace fillips of it down through my family history. A person’s genes bubble up as they will.
I don’t even know if I want to call what poets do a “gift,” as so many like to call it. Everything is a gift. Beyond that, we all have proclivities. Writing happens to be mine. It’s not a way to “make sense of the world.” The world does not make human sense, and whatever structure I happen to overlay on it is just that, my structure. Does the world have to make “sense”? One person’s sense is another person’s idiocy.
Wow, this is all sounding fierce. There comes a time when it seems necessary to scrape off the barnacles that begin to collect on “being a poet.” Comes a time when it seems necessary to shut the door and quit “being a poet.”
Young people want to “be a poet.” When/if they get over that, maybe they can write poems.
Labels can muffle your soul. The soul—I think it is raw and rough and may even smell. I think it has sharp edges.
Speaking of sharp edges, our kitty Molly is not like our former beloved Wally. She has sharp edges. She skitters away, sometimes. She has a raspy meow that my daughter Kelly says sounds like a smoker’s voice. She demands to be fed. She sheds as prolifically as a gingko tree. The gingko is all through shedding in one night; however, Molly’s goes on and on. We’ve been through two whole lint rollers and prodigious vacuuming already. She doesn’t follow a routine, not much anyway. She sometimes comes for her treats at bedtime, sometimes not. She mostly sleeps on the back of the sofa. She’s both delightful and maddening. She has personality.
We have no way of knowing where she came from, who left her out in the wild, what her karma is, what her heredity might be. So we take her as she is. If you’re looking for a connection with poets and poetry, it’s this: Who knows what comes from where? You can make up stories, but they’re only stories. They’re fun to make up as long as you know you’re doing that.
If enough people start believing a story—if it becomes an “in-thing” to believe the story—if you’re not one of the group unless you believe the story. . . . Well, we know where that can lead. The border between a lie and a story is thin, and can be transgressed.
Truth is, I have nothing to say today. I never have any burning message to deliver in these blog posts. You probably figured that out already. I have no burning message to impart in general. Especially in poems. And also, truth is, the poems (and the posts) usually turn out to be most authentic when I have nothing to say. The saying begins to shape itself in the saying.
I ask myself—often, actually—why do I bother? What makes me think you want to read this? What “good” is this to anyone? But then I think, maybe you’re looking for the same thing I’m looking for, a moment of authenticity, when language is able to punch a hole through the labels and stories, just for a moment, and there’s spark like two wires touching, a recognition. Oh, we’re not as separate as we’ve imagined.
P. S. I’ll be Zoom-reading and answering questions for the Wilmington, Delaware, Rotary on June 10 at noon. The link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7972453263 I’ll have about 20 minutes. You’re welcome to join this event.