Staying engaged can apply to writing, to poetry, as well as to the political situation. You’d think you couldn’t help it, as a writer, but there are deeper levels of being engaged. Some of them involve backing off from the work a bit.
I was reading A. Van Jordan’s blog, about his relationship with his teacher, Agha Shahid Ali: “there are times when we need to pull the poem away from our faces to get a wider view of what it’s trying to say to the world. This may sound lofty, but it’s real. A poem isn’t simply line breaks and rhythmic language; it needs to contribute to our lives.”
A. Van Jordan, poet, professor at Stanford, formerly at the University of Michigan.
And this:
“ It wasn’t really about the line or the structure as much as it was about the conversation I was trying to have with the world. Shahid would challenge me to articulate what I meant to say in the poem. He would ask why I had written a particular poem and, in doing so, he opened a door in my mind.”
My summary:
1. What does my poem contribute to our mutual lives?
2. Why did I write this poem?
3. What sort of conversation am I having with the world here?
Add to that a comment by writer Rebecca Solnit: “If the future does not yet exist and we are creating the future in the present, then we have tremendous responsibility to actually engage.
Public outcry, I guess, was effective in getting Kimmel back on the air. Who knows what Colbert will do next? Something, I’m sure.
Colbert is silenced. Jimmy Kimmel was almost silenced. and lately I am speechless. What do I have to offer, anyway? I’m sickened. Maybe I’ve said all I can say. I feel like turning my back on the world, refusing to have further conversation. I’m old enough to get to do that, aren’t I?
I notice that in our conversations with friends, we simply allude to the awfuls, deadpan; we no longer rant. That worries me. I worry me. There was the early blast of indignation, disbelief, rage, but that can’t be sustained. You can’t just repeat. A numbness will set in.
Deadpan carries its own weight, though. It may be the second stage of rage. It says, “I’ve seen this already, over and over. It’s worse than ever.” Maybe the third stage of rage is akin to what women have done for centuries: shut up, undermine, learn to use language to undermine, learn to use gesture, intelligence, to maneuver around the obstacles.
Women have been blamed for that, for being devious. That’s the word that’s been used, but you could think of it as poised, careful, intense, with the focused intent of changing the world instead of going off in a corner and sobbing.
I am full of rage. On the other hand, the weather’s been wonderful, birds are returning to our feeder after we’ve been gone so long. Everyone I dearly love is okay at the moment. The opposites are like a piston, converting energy into motion.
What sort of motion is the question. The writerly answer is to ask, “Why do I want to write another poem?” What conversation do I want to start here? It’s only in conversation that we get anywhere. And where do I want to get?
Where I want to do is to feel what’s it’s like further inside myself, to get closer to the piston’s energy, and then use it to push outside the poem, to let my particular, personal energy evolve some portion of the universe. I hope any of this makes sense.
The P.S. . . .
In spite of likely back surgery, it looks like I’m going to be able to keep my word about several readings before I see the surgeon. Here’s a schedule:
Oct 4, Dennos Museum Workshop, Poetry Society of Michigan, 11:30-12:30
Oct 8, Reading at Leland Library, Old Art Building, 4:00
Oct 19, Reading at Cordia, time TBA
Oct 25, Bellaire Library, 11:00 a.m. A reading from my new book, The End of the Clockwork Universe.