Bridge Over Muddy Waters?
Some pre-coffee morning thoughts:
Poetry is a many splendored thing. It's a means of self-expression, communication, therapy, entertainment and artistic/creative release - all good things - yet it's much more than these. In a sense, poetry is a religion - and it's reality.
There are some folks, however - and I've known quite a few - who see poetry as a bad thing, an ego trip, an escape from "real," practical living and seeing.
Sometimes I wonder. In the course of striving to discover, express and unearth myself through the pursuit of poetry, could it be that I also bury my real self in it? Is it possible that the more we reveal ourselves, the more we unintentionally conceal ourselves? Or that the more we clarify ourselves through poetry, the more muddy the picture of what we've attempted to clarify becomes? If so, then why? Is there some sort of subconscious self-defense mechanism at work within us? Or is it more a case of reality itself being supremely muddy? In the latter case, our best efforts to clarify reality will only serve to reveal how muddy it is.
I don't know. Maybe it's like excavating archeological artifacts. The treasure we find might be muddy when we find it - but that doesn't mean the treasure is made of mud or the mud coating was ever a real part of the treasure. It might have been very difficult to get to that point of discovery - navigating through jungles, doing lots of digging, or making one's way through the depths to the ocean bottom. But just because we find the "item" we sought, whatever it might be, doesn't mean our work is finished. Found treasures sometimes require careful cleaning, reconstruction, or preservation. Sometimes it takes a while to know what they are, put them in their proper context or fully make sense of them. Maybe we learn that certain components are missing and we must do more digging or sifting. Perhaps in some cases we can never fully make sense of what we've found. Maybe one person's treasure is another person's trash - and vice versa. And maybe - just maybe - in muddy reality it's all treasure - and it's all trash.
Should poetry be pretty or dirty? In other words... Is poetry a bridge over these muddy waters? Or should poetry eschew the bridge and dive in?
Jesus by Jesus [last night's Photobucketization of a 2007 self-portrait]
I very much so bury myself in it, sad thing is... The true me feels lost or stuck or something or maybe I just haven't bloomed yet LOL
I think with poetry we should just take the dive!
Oh & I love that picture!!
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I've often thought that once I write a poem down, I am more locked within the confines of that poem. I recite my lines over and over, hundreds of times in my head. It's a jail of sorts.
But I have clarified myself through poetry. Without writing it down, stuff dissolves in the ether, and no progress can be made. Words are constructions, not only jails.
Reality is muddy, and we have a job as poets to order it, to grasp its intangibilities and illuminate facades through the guck like panes of windowglass.
Einstein said either everything's a miracle, or nothing is. I used to think the latter, now I think the former.
I like poetry that dives into ambiguities.
I read something in CPS the other day: "everything and its opposite is true."
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I find it funny that you've met people who think poetry is "bad". That's something I can't say I've ever encountered. I've definitely met many people who simply don't understand it and quickly change the subject, but people who say it's "bad"?! Strange.
Poetry is just like any other art form--painting, film, sculpture, architecture, etc. Neither good nor bad. The "goodness" or "badness" of it comes of what we do with it.
Art is both pretty and dirty. Large and small. Intimate and universal. A way to find ourselves and a way to lose ourselves.
Art is whatever we want it to be.
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check my blogs little ditty we wrote together -
I'm going to post more of those.
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Is it alright if I comment even if I am not (and never will be) a poet?
To me, as a reader of it, as an admirer of people who write it, I think it should be something that just flows out of you, whatever that may be. It could be pretty, or ugly. It's whatever emotion you feel inside that you just can't keep inside of you..it must come out. It has to be expressed or it digs at you until you write it down.
As a listener, or reader, I think it should just flow over you like water over a dam. AT least that's how it is with me. If it's something that I like, I can feel it soaking into my skin and sometimes it will haunt me for days on end until something else comes along to replace it.
When I find an old piece of furniture that is in pretty bad shape cosmetically, I can often see the inner beauty of it. I will take it home, sand it, stain it, polish it and it's beautiful, or sometimes, I think it's more beautiful in it's natural state. Either way, it all boils down to personal preference.
Love that picture of you! It's the eyes there that get to me in that picture.
BTW, I was able to hear you read your poetry last night for the first time, and it just blew me away! It was truly a great reading.
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To a certain extent, there is no reality. There is only perception. That is one of the great conflicts of poetry. It's one of the great conflicts of communication. I think human beings struggle with a variety of opposing forces. I have always understood one of the values of art to reveal universal truths. Of course, being the egocentric creatures we are, we cannot reveal universal truths without revealing at least a piece of the self. I think that it takes a lot of courage to purposely attempt to share yourself with the rest of us through your poetry. But even when you are at your most stripped down, bare and honest, we approach your work with our own perceptions, experiences and preconceived notions. However, I think that art reveals far more truth than it conceals. There is a certain integrity to any engaging art that is at it's heart brutally honest.
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Give it a rest
People always searchin’
For a thing they ain’t got
Their heads in the clouds
& their guts in a knot over
Questions & answers that
Don’t correlate meditatin’
Levitatin’ ‘til their body
Vibrates like a plucked
Piano wire in a song tired
Of bein’ played over &
Over & nothin’ is changed
Like a cryin’ baby’s diaper
The shit’s just rearranged
So invest in the smell
The world’s a vomitorium
& we’re all Romans in Hell
Bon appetite
KE
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Poetry is meant to represent life, not just one particular perceiver's perspective on what is "good" or "pretty." Life is all of it, interwoven and interconnected. However, consider that the poetry which lives is primarily that which is universal, not usually intensely personal. Poetry's strength is as a commentary on cultures, societies and nations. Any focus on self in poetry only has value to the self. Exposing the truth about the human condition and elevating the hopes, dreams and aspirations of humanity to its highest potential should always be the aim of poets. Experimentation entails bravery. Nonetheless, bravery infers the responsibility of craft. The trick is making it all come together and carry a universal emotional content that the reader cannot end up help also experiencing.
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"Any focus on self in poetry only has value to the self." If the self is pretty or dirty doesn't matter if the only value in the poetry is revealing just one's self.
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Ready? Okay. When I was a kid, I used to like making puzzles for my little brother to solve. I would make mazes that had no way out, word searches that didn't contain the listed words and crosswords whose clues led to nothing. I read a lot of poetry that reminds me of those puzzles.
I'm not entirely sure they're supposed to say anything.
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All writing is just a bunch of words without meaning unless the words transmit meaning to the reader. No writing is good or bad in itself but the perception is what it conveys to the person who can
find meaning and sense in those words.
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In poetry you mean? Because I could argue that I've seen some wickedly bad writing, but in poetry I wouldn't know how to judge that, except by what I do or don't like. So in that way, it makes sense.
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http://poetrypoem.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?poemnumber=941082&sitename=charlax1&poemoffset=0&displaypoem=t&item=poetry
no picture this is your deal on the pic
and no bothersome link on the last posting you did thats YOUR baby just quick link to the last poem eye did to relate eye read every poem that eye make at least 37 times in one day a little myopic a little jaded a little proud of them a little thankful mabe to the GOD ??? have fun and enjoy your reading poems at the big LIX & KIX at the 806
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eye had a strang time today they refused to publish DICK tracey my #8 poem until eye removed the text so eye published it with the pictures only talk about censorship well it is a hard adult story a COP with a machine gun
http://storypen.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?poemnumber=382045&sitename=charlax777&password=310331KfoZaest4rQ.3103&poemoffset=0&displaypoem=t&item=story
this first link is the picture only
the second link is adult rated text you be the judge iff this should have been censored or not
http://vistageneration.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?itemnumber=742797&sitename=charlax7&password=&itemoffset=0&displayitem=t&item=member
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My poetry is such a part of me, that there's no distinguishing between pretty and dirty, or good and bad, or clear and muddy. It's all me. And I don't really have a choice in the matter; I have to write. I love the way you present the musings, though; I really love the mud on the treasure imagery. And I have to admit that I, too, have encountered individiuals who went beyond the not caring about poetry, into the "poetry is bad" thing. I think something's lacking in them, and they're projecting onto us. So back to your original question: do we bury, or conceal ourselves, when we write and strive to reveal, or express? No, I don't think so. The "deeper" we go into ourselves, the more we touch our inner core, and become. And for me, that's a good thing.
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Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond to this one…. I’ve been thinking about what you’ve written and taken me a while to sort my thoughts.
I think it comes down to…. why do you write? What are you doing when you write something? What is your motivation… what moves you….. as a writer.
I can answer for myself that writing is about seeking clarity for me. I write to know myself, to know the world around me. Writing helps me process things I experience….
It is more than just about creating something for someone else to read and enjoy it is about finding myself first in the writing of whatever I write… then sharing that.
Because in some cases I’ve written things and I don’t know where they have actually come from… they come from a part of me I don’t know yet… they are new and untouched thoughts I share… I almost feel they were written by someone else sometimes.
Other times things are like a well choreographed dance… thought out and scripted to the last dot.
in a way it is a religion... I would agree with that thought. It is that personal… Like a prayer... a conversation with yourself or God... or whatever… I often view it that way.
Does it reveal truth… can it be …should it be pretty or dirty? I think it can and should be all of those things… if it is real. Because most importantly it has to be real…people feel that in things that are written. Because it should be like any art, a reflection of what the author feels or sees expressed in whatever way they chose to share it. And like any art you don’t even know what your sharing sometimes till it shows itself out there on the page... sometimes it’s as much a surprise to you as it is anyone else… at least sometimes it’s like that for me.
I think like any artistic endeavor… you have to be willing to get your hands dirty once in a while… so not all poetry will be “clean”… some will be down right “gritty”. And just like not everyone likes every form of visual artistic expression… not everyone is going to like every kind of written artistic expression… and that would include poetry.
It may be neither trash nor treasure…. but truth... or reality…. And that is more important to me.
Thanks for the thoughtful blog, John.
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The most striking thing about this blog isn't the literary criticism but the photo that you included with what you call "Photobucketization" of a self portrait. I like it a lot more than the Andy Warhol heads on the previous blog.
It must be a lot of fun to play in the Photobucket. At least the Minister thinks so and he is your most avid fan.
And by the way this is to Joy Leftow:
I got your book of poetry "Spot of Bleach" today. I find your writing very interesting and recommend it to all.
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John, look how wonderful you are; connecting writers with other writers. 2 women in your blog have connected to me. Elena I am honored that you praise my book.
Thank you both so much.
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We always tend to bury parts of ourselves. All of us can't be visible at once, there are too many pieces - literally & figuratively.
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there i go daring to be different.
in re-reading everyone's comments I certainly agree that the deeper we understand ourselves - the better we can develop the characters we create.
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this is a basic mistake everyone makes - people keep saying "A or B?" like it's one or the other, yet the truth is it's A and B and C thru Z plus a whole buncha shit we don't even know about. reality is BIG, not little.
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