I'm gonna keep this short because I want to know what you folks have to say about the question I'm posing in my blog. This is something I've been wondering about for the last quarter because I read a shitload of poetry that was written for a very specific purpose. With that being said, I'll just get right into it.
Writing poetry for the sake of writing poetry is a fairly
new phenomenon. In the past, writing verse was chiefly something one did for a
very specific reason. If you pick up an anthology of English Renaissance verse,
you’ll find a lot of commissioned poetry (i.e. epithalamion, shit about the
church, etc.) and poetry that was written – to put it crudely, though perhaps
in the way a modern Marvell or Donne would put it – to get pussy. Other poems were written to commemorate
events. This sort of poetry, in particular, is all over the place in early American
poetry. However, most of the poetry I read today isn’t setting out to do these
types of things (an exception of this, though, is the poetry of witness).
So, why do you guys write poetry? What is it that compels you
to put pen to paper? Personally, I’ve recently been writing some poems that
deal with physics. A lot of these poems are attempts for people to embrace
scientific principles. I recently wrote
a poem about the Schrödinger’s cat experiment. I did this because I really like
that particular experiment and because there is a lot to be said about the
poetic implications of the experiment as a whole. When I read it at our last
poetry reading, only one or two people in the audience knew what the experiment
was. Since then, I’ve decided that my next collection of poetry will be based
around science so that my friends, most of whom are poetry fanatics, may become
more interested in thinking about things like theoretical physics.
This is sort of a unique endeavor, though; and, as far as I
know, most modern poetry isn’t seeking to do something like that. So, please,
let me know what you guys are hoping to accomplish through your work. I know
that poetry is often something that people do because of therapeutic reasons,
but surely some of you write it for reasons other than that, right? Let me know
your thoughts.
J
I just bought my husband a Schroedinger's Cat Decision Maker from ThinkGeek. It's like those old 8-balls; you ask it a question and then open the door: if the cat's alive, it's a yes. :)
ReplyDeleteAnd I write poetry when I think prose won't cut it.
I need one of those! Quantum fluctuations are better decision makers than I.
DeleteAnd as for your answer to my question, I respect the hell out of that.
I write because of my commitment to two not widely shared assumptions: truth exists, and humans have souls. Poetry is a tool to align souls to truth.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the term "truth," I immediately -- thanks to you, actually -- think of Stephen Crane's 28th poem from The Black Riders. Truth, to me, is "a breath, a wind, a shadow, a phantom," and it sometimes seems difficult to "touch them hem of its garment." Under that assumption, in what ways can one go about bearing witness to truth through verse?
ReplyDeleteWe can contribute pieces of a mosaic, which itself merely alludes to truth. It's the old story of blind men describing an elephant. The man at the ass has a way different story than the one at the mouth.
DeleteWe can express something about our little chunk of a very large animal.
We can go about it with a little humility. We think we're pretty smart. We've only mapped--what--2% of our little planet's ocean floor? Yet, we often claim to have a handle on the Gods. Men so often turn into demons when they think they know the truth.
I write because language is a difficult thing to manipulate. There is a challenge associated with writing that I think compels many people to move to a different medium. They say they simply cannot express themselves in words. And to these people I say one thing, "Read more books".
ReplyDeleteI also write because it is a source of meditation. When I write in Nature, I feel a oneness. A clarity or a truth that has existed long before I did.
And I write because I have a crush on Walt (Walt for Song of Myself). There is something about his sexuality and bravado that just compels me to grip my pen and stroke a few lines on the page.
I write poetry to grow, to play, and to give. It comes from exploration of multiple contexts, both objective and personal. My poems are both creations and verbal artifacts, cleaned up a bit, and placed on display.
ReplyDeleteSteven,
DeleteI particularly like what you have to say in terms of poetry being a practice of giving. I find that my best poems are poems that are either for someone or are written with someone in mind. I think it is through other people that we come to understand the universe. Going off of the story you bring up, I think if we can understand the ass and talk about the mouth through someone else, we get a better picture of that animal.
Thanks for your thoughts, Steven.
Cheers,
J