Incandescence
If you've nothing nice to say, come sit with me.
Epic Novelist
Gender: 
Age: 19
Joined: 22 Nov 2004
Posts: 3023
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Country: USA
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 Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:40 am Post subject: Poetic Voice as Fealty to the Soul? |
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Hi all,
I have, in my short life, been asked already countless times on what basis a poem fails. There is never a very good answer to this question, because good poetry simultaneously works on several levels, and even that, true as it may be, is in no way a totality of the field of poetry.
I recently had a student send me an email, which I have received permission to reproduce below, and have also included my response. The idea here is that we begin exploring the fundamental question: what is a poem?
Hoping this finds you well,
Brad
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"You know, I'm coming more to the conclusion that poetry is a litmus test for character. Character in turn is the ability to listen to oneself and portray what one hears faithfully, that is, without grandiosity, embellishment, fear or guile; the perfect medium or water-carrier. Strength of character then is the ability to resist manifold temptations: to avoid self-inflation, to resist the desire to appear smart and clever, to resist being overly assertive, to fight feelings of inadequacy, of being overwhelmed, etc. There are so many ways a poet's human frailities can lead a poem astray. A poem consists of a thousand decisions, considered detours and roads not taken. Speaking alliteratively, the multiplicities for mayhem are myriad. There are infinitely more ways to go wrong than right.
The vast universe of poems veer into a ditch, sabotaged by the delusions, impatience, grandiosity of the poet. Conducting a poem to the page is a rare triumph. I guess what I'm saying is that many poems' failures are due not to inadequate inspiration, but simply because the poet gets in the way. How many poems have you read that begin promisingly enough, but because the poet is not sufficiently equipped at (self-)listening (perhaps he is too enmeshed in his own personal catalog of vanities, insecurities and flaws; literally, he's blocked up), the poem gets lost or derailed? You can almost hear it grinding off the tracks. Often the last line or image is prefunctory or ill-chosen (poor attention span, laziness, impatience?). It's damned hard to conduct a poem to its intended terminus. As Emerson said, all poems existed before time itself. So poetic failure is largely due to the navigational failures of the poet. Poets run poems aground, not vice versa.
I read somewhere recently that what's so often referred to as Philp Larkin's 'morose' poetic voice may not have been his voice at all but rather a low-grade lingering clinical depression that distended his voice, marred it, diverted it. This suggests to me that voice is some apriori, unimpeded entity, call it the soul. A bad --or unsuccessful-- poem becomes everything we do to it before it can reach the page. Put another way, everything the world has done to us, we do to our poems --if we're not careful. Visit your foibles on your poem, and your poem will suffer.
I imagine poetic voice as the steam rising up from the subway tunnel. We are the subway-grate, part impediment, part flue. Like steam, the poem must 'negotiate' around us in order to meld with the surrounding air. Some grates make better impediments than conductors. Perhaps a tarpaulin (a fear?, a trauma?) is draped across the grate, offering more impediment than flue. A good poet learns when to stand aside (most of the time) and when to intervene in order to allow the facilitate the poem's escape into the atmosphere. The challenge is inherently maddening, that is, paradoxical: when to be the grate (the self-applying editor/arbiter) and when to be the egoless, 'space between the iron grate'."
Hi, Doreen -
Re: "The vast universe of poems veer into a ditch, sabotaged by the delusions, impatience, grandiosity of the poet. Conducting a poem to the page is a rare triumph. I guess what I'm saying is that many poems' failures are due not to inadequate inspiration, but simply because the poet gets in the way."
If you were willing to acknowledge that the lack of language skills is a significant contributor to failure, and perhaps the primary contributor, I'd have little problem with what you are saying. Unfortunately, your argument as stated seems to assume that adequate language skills are a given - that suitable vocabulary, an ear for sonics and meter, and judgment related to the effectiveness of images and metaphors are readily available to all who would construct a poem.
Your argument that poems fail only because of some innate quasi-spiritual characteristic in the writer strikes me as absolute bushwa.
I have wonderful music in my mind, but lack the mechanical skills to reproduce it on any known musical instrument. Is this a fault of character?
All the best,
Brad
"I recall one of your statements during your seminar on ethics: 'Either Plato was the greatest disaster to befall western culture or he IS western culture. More likely, it's both.'
I confess that the idea of apriori invoking something --a muse, a white goddess, a realm of ideas-- sounds ludicrous to most modern ears. But I'm a romantic, even against all the evidence. I'll never pray to the lint in my navel.
With all apologies to the spit-and-polishers, technique, style and proficiency of skill don't by themselves do the poetic process its full measure of justice."
Doreen--
Let me preface this remark with the following observation: you are a fine poet, one whose skill and ease of pen far outdo that of my own. That said, I think you are misguided.
The Poetic Voice, the Muse, the Soul--all good excuses for plenty of self-important pretentious twaddle on the importance of My Art and My Work, I think. I have to pass, as I can't take myself that seriously, probably because I'm just not poetically gifted enough to enter the high-vaulted poetic cathedral. I just stand outside and suck a lollipop (any sexual metaphors here are probably apt).
Re: "With all apologies to the spit-and-polishers, technique, style and proficiency of skill don't by themselves do the poetic process its full measure of justice."
With all apologies to museaholics, inspiration unsupported by technique, style and proficiency probably does more harm to the poetic process than any other phenomenon. The evidence is filed at poetry.com and other accessible locations. ;-)
Near as I can tell, ascribing excellent poetry to "the muse" is done after the fact, once the polished work is presented. It acknowledges a significant bit of inspiration coupled with sufficient technique to let the inspiration display itself.
Take care,
Brad |
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"If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders." -Hal Abelson |
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