You’ve probably seen this enough. But isn’t it a great cover?
A chapbook is a funny thing. So tiny, sometimes it seems embarrassingly barely more than a flyer. Yet it has those words, those poems, each one worked over and over. Little jewels, you would say, if you liked them. If you didn’t, you’d say, “What?”
The philosophy of the chapbook is to keep it small enough, under 30 pages, so there is cohesion and I suppose the satisfaction of being able to read it all almost at once. I realized as I was gathering the prose poems together that they made up a story of some sort about loss—illness, suffering, and death—but there seems to be a lot of joy in them, too. That’s the way it is with me, I think. I’m pretty happy, even with the unavoidable suffering, mine and the world’s. How that can happen, in my case, might require me to talk a long while about my Buddhist practice, which you don’t need to hear. Hearing about it is about as useful as telling you about a poem instead of giving you one.
In any case, I’m particularly reflective when a book comes out. I look at the work differently, because I have to see the poems in the eyes and ears of an audience. At that time, I regrettably sometimes start worrying about the poems as entertainment: which ones will make them laugh, which ones cause strong emotions, etc. I do want to put on a good show, in a sense. But I don’t really mean exactly that. I feel I am an ambassador for poetry itself, to people who hardly ever encounter a poem.
Well, perhaps this isn’t where I live, exactly.
Here at the retirement community where I live, a lot of people came to my little “launch.” I suspect many came out of curiosity, but that doesn’t matter. Once I have them there, the poems can work on them. But these new ones are prose poems! Think of the kind of poems we learned in grade school—which is the last time most people even thought of poems. They rhymed, they had regular meter, they often had a “moral.” At least that’s what we were taught. Take Wordsworth, or the easier poems of Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost. All wonderful poets, who do a particular thing with language. Rhyme and/or meter are great for remembering. For reciting. Many great poems were (and still are) public poems.
But consider this: when there were no cameras, a portrait of a person needed to be exact. Public. But when it became easy to take a picture of someone, portraits began to reflect what couldn’t be easily seen—the interior self. Pictures became more abstract. Picasso splintered the portrait into what he perceived the eye would see if it could see many angles at once. You know all this, but it seems necessary to talk about poetry the same way. Contemporary poetry tends to look down into, rather than at the surface.
So I feel when I read to people my age and older, I’d better just read, and read poems that are interesting in their own way. That might be argument enough. And then give the audience a chance to participate afterward, with their questions. I’d say an audience used to poems doesn’t necessarily want or need a Q & A.
How long have I been writing a monthly column on poetry for the Record-Eagle? Eighteen years! Ever since we moved to Traverse City. I introduce people to poems I like, and talk a little about them. Know who else does that, and splendidly? George Bilgere. Look him up and subscribe to his column, Poetry Town. He and I both appreciate “accessible” poems, ones that can be read on several levels so that the uninitiated can enjoy them, and yet there’s more there for those who’re used to reading poems.
I guess the point of this rambling Wobbly is to reflect on the fact that a poem is incomplete until it reaches a willing ear. The responsibility lies equally with the poet and the listener. Nothing is itself alone. To even exist, It requires multiple forces.
The P.S. . . . . . .
My next scheduled local reading will be Friday, May 23rd, at Dog Ears Books, in Northport. I love this bookstore and this town. This is a noon reading. Bring your sandwich.