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IV. Each Word Weighs
Returning the Light to Poetry …response to “Poetry as Question” by J.E. Bennett
I shall not write, unless I say to you the pain you feel is the light. The sensitivity to deeper hurt is what holds above the dirt. is what rises—sipped surprises— is your wisdom and defeat is your sinking for a treat is redemption—pain itself. Isn’t it the one without feeling who can kill —without conscience—without turning— without empathy restraining will? All the while, the substance, style missed in poetry, reflects most notably its cultureless world. The pain you feel is the light. —Ruth Hill
The Task
What makes me think that I could cast a spell with this pen? Should I even try to give words wings that they might fly beyond the strictures fusing purpose to plurals, melding clarity to chaos, infusing the menial with meaning, yielding straight-arrow insights? No—the task is too great, The monolith, too immovable, The heart, too cryptic. No—my ink has run dry. The world needs a stronger voice, perhaps a few, who will stitch wounds with stanzas, mend souls with meter, unite random factions with rhyme.
—Connie S. Tettenborn
David
As to whether poetry should mean a thing, or do, as opposed to merely be, David was a poet too:
As his stone was wound and hurled and his psalms were sung with an aim to save a world, so can lines of verse be slung.
Talent’s like a flaccid sling pocketed and pliant till the poet loads the thing and shoots down a giant. —James B. Nicola
Age old terraces hug the hills, bushes thrive thick, old fruit trees still bloom, and striving, barely yield, small fruit of old age.
The moment will come, to face mind and mortality
When my body stops and that fruit of mind, those lessons lived and learned are gone.
Will a space remain? A gap? No! I think not. So self-important I am not.
On the shelf some books will stand, orphaned. —Michael E. Stone June 2 2014
Transposings
But poetic creation . . . implies the abolition of time—of the history concentrated in language—and tends towards the recovery of the paradisiac, the primordial situation. Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries
The children enter the magic forest and become the carriers of magic. They write no poetry but live within its enchantments long lost by earnest parents caught in the rubrics of supply and demand.
They become the forest and the forest embraces them in all its strangeness, dark shadows that reel and writhe, that speak in tongues and offer no alphabet.
Time changes its costume and makes of a stage something new, something different. It no longer obeys a straight line from past to present to future as taught in schools upright in sunshine.
The clocks fall apart and future and past intermingle, join hands with whatever a present is. The children become travelers then, moving back and forth as though no barriers forbid. They hear the music of stones and streams, growls and bleatings behind the shadows.
They taste unknown fruits and berries, lie down to sleep the sleep of innocents. They dream of the magic forest where nothing is real but is.
And the poet, the poet too ventures into the strangeness far removed from ready made texts and rules. He seeks out the poem wherever it waits, far ahead or near as the flame of a candle by which the shadows grow and offer their stories. He listens for the time before time. His pen moves when it moves. —Doug Bolling
Between the Lines
In matters that relate to the material world, a person might consider the purpose a person of his actions, that it might deal with the Almighty and take us to the Divine” (Pele Yoetz, The Love of God)
Each word weighs, each world takes a step in the right direction. Feet follow, consider thoughts, concrete, on after the other, each side breaks
a step in the right direction. Feet follow the next space, a reason, a break into another dimension. Makes a difference beyond, where I sit
Fill the next space, a reason, breaks the mold and looks for the next, a difference beyond, where I sit and reveal what’s inside, make the tracks,
the mold, and look for to the meet thoughts, consider, follow them, concrete, and reveal the inside, make the tracks, each word weighs, each word takes. —Zev Davis
The Black Writer
cold black words corrupt the pale virginity of paper changing innocence dark transforms it from Eden, with tiny letters that mean something, with quick hands, you peck the nothingness because you are inclined to tell the world what’s on your mind ruining the blank chastity of empty whiteness —Allison Whittenberg
OVID IN EXILE
I see him there on a night like this— foggy, cool— the moon blowing through black streets.
He sups and walks back to his room. (O how slowly, how differently one tells the time in Tomis!)
He sits down at the table. (People in exile write so many letters.) Now Ovid is weeping. Each night about this hour he puts on sadness like a garment, drinks a cup of undiluted wine.
During the day he is teaching himself the local language (Getic) in order to compose in it
an epic poem no one will ever read. —Constance Rowell Mastores Note: Ovid, in A.D. 8, on the order of Augustus Cesar, was banished to Tomis, on the western shore of the Black Sea. He died there at age sixty in A.D. 18.
THE WHITE LABYRINTH
There is one waiting for you on every blank sheet of paper. So, beware of the monster guarding it—invisible as he charges— armed as you are with only a pen. And watch out for that girl who will come to your aid with her quick mind and a ball of thread, and lead you by the nose out of one maze into another. —Constance Rowell Mastores
BLACKBOARD & CHALK
I used to do drafts of poems on a blackboard. I wrote in large loopy letters. I erased a lot. Which makes me think of John Ashbery. I watch as he writes (brilliantly) on a blackboard with his right hand, while his left, a line or two behind, erases all that’s gone before. Reading him can seem like that.
Chalk is particular because it falls apart as you are creating. With the chalk on your hand, the chalk on your clothes, the chalk on your nose you look like you’ve been in a mine digging something out.
Some of the first brilliant things I ever learned were from somebody who had their back to me. They were writing on a blackboard and chalk was flying everywhere. So the image is precious to me of the board and the act of giving yourself to that board And then turning around. —Constance Rowell Mastores
Riposte to the Illustrious after A King and No King
If I took all that there was of me and put it in a box of quiddity, would my mirror draw a blank and dearth of fame suggest I stank? You, my liege, have known success above what’s called eximious. Your rank transcends all that I’ve reigned, or ever will—that’s preordained. Adulations won’t serve here; from me they would seem petty, insincere. Accomplishments like yours cannot be praised; they’re too advanced, I’m too amazed. And would you pity me, who’s fallen so far short, that I might as well cashier my next effort? No doubt you’d be magnanimous, for who could not be covetous? I read your works, preparing my dismay; expecting Shakespeare, or perhaps Dante. What I saw looked small, and wanted grace which proves that I don’t know my place. So, sirrah, while I can’t impugn your résumé, I’d just as soon retain what’s mine, and who I am, than prize all yours, which seems a sham. —Craig Kurtz
Cover Letter
Just in case you think I am not astute enough to intuit why you return my poem/s— I can see you sequestered behind (preprinted) rejection slip like God behind columns of cloud— here are five good reasons:
1. I love the way God weaves in and out of our affairs leads me like a lover longing for lost unity to undreamed of boundaries that break out of bounds to discover fresh redemptive language Your instructions to authors denounce religion Does that include God?
2. I am tired of a. poems set in minutiae a subtext growing thinner the poem as direct access to banal reality washing a dish Chicago near the Lake steamy summer of 1989 your hands in water staring back at you like someone else’s hands slumped against sink memories of your mother’s remarks on your posture when you washed dishes in Hartford, Connecticut 1974 b. advice about writing a poem write in willingness to discard everything clean out the attic? add a quirky element an ontological room? No! resist dogma at all times be free of the imprisoning self an attic with revolving door? you may be self-referential but only if you are mocking always demonstrate that poetry makes good politics recycle junk in attic? stay safe in endless duplication
3. I am a Jew prefer that to Jewess I practice an ancient religion don’t get me wrong I am American I munched popcorn during the Ten Commandments accepted the oddly believable idea that Charleton Heston’s jaw controlled two nations he controlled my breathing at twelve I know self-deprecating Jewish fiction sells and sells but I am not that kind of Jew WHAT OTHER KIND IS THERE? you ask. your question consigns me to yet another margin: with whom do I conduct literary dialogue? the avant garde progress but like stodgy pilgrims slowly slowly slowly through miles of decon- struc- tion their ritual stance: snooty-slick-over-slouchy-doubtful
4. I find that I can resist transitions I cannot resist conclusion endings are unfashionable like Ecclesiastes they suggest a map beneath the cosmos destination and destiny sins of commission everybody knows alienation is where it’s at
My Best Friends Are Books: A LOVE LETTER TO LITERATURE
I’ve known a lot of people but I like them best as books; humanity dependable and honest, scorning rooks. ‘Tis curious how ‘real people’ can shift and disconcert; they’re indecisive, oft faithless— suppositions controvert. No sooner than I place my trust in human nature, vows or oaths, consistency and fealty will ‘evolve’ and don new clothes. The people that I thought I knew so often prove irregular; when surety gets puts to trust the denouement will fain demur. Then is it not astonishing how characters called ‘fictional’ can be relied upon to vaunt relations more reliable. Whenever people say one thing then mean another (howe’er remote), books will never counterfeit— their word is bonded by a quote. And, best of all, books do forbear tergiversations and miscues; when all confusions palliate, they dote on you, and disabuse. Friends are necessary to make life more meaningful; but people are perfidious while books are sane and stable. You can have your dramas, inconsistencies and friends; I’m content with mine— the ones who live between bookends. —Craig Kurtz
My Robot Wrote This Poem
My robot had the audacity to write this poem and then sign my name to it! Hey! Who really wrote this poem anyway? The person who built the robot? The robot? Or me the person who owns the robot? Or was it a shared enterprise?
If my robot itself wrote this (some fried egg and coffee stains on the writing pad leftover from his breakfast after he was upgraded to First Class on the 7am shuttle) then I state unequivocally that I did not share in it and it doesn’t qualify as a poem and has no genuine feelings: A robot’s feelings are not genuine because a robot does not have an own self to generate or to respond with feelings (maybe a pseudo self but not an actual human self) Any “feelings” in its poem are creations of an algorithmic thesaurus of human-like feelings— not from real feelings
My robot is not a twenty-first century slave: I take care to offer him a plentiful, environmentally friendly diet— I provide solar cells and non-GPS manna fresh daily and according to his flavor preference He joins my family at all meals; Upon Jubilee my robot will be set free from robot status unless he had his earlobe pierced and has opted to serve as my robot for his lifetime
Each week’s winning poem is displayed for six days (not on Shabbat) on the outside skin of the fuselage just forward of the right fin— That is one hundred forty four revolutions— after which another robot/owner’s poem gets a chance O.K. Let’s say I don’t object to being a conjoint poet-of-record; So what did my bloody robot write? Does it matter?
More fragile than Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto which was etched on the outside of NASA Voyager and now consigned to an infinity of intergalactic wandering, a winning poem would be erased by the friction albeit minimal from space dust and no chance for earth beings to reclaim
Then my robot proceeded to argue that the emotions he felt were just as real as my human emotions; Unlikely. Unlikely that robot-feelings mature or change over its lifespan in the same way that a person’s emotions mature or change over time.
Now I took control: “Write a poem about G-d,” I challenged “Repeat command.” “Yes, write a poem about G-d.” “Advise other name.” “G-d has seventy names— “Which name do you want?” “Advise other name” Stubborn sonofa…
“Ad-nai, Kadosh, Akatsh, E-l, Elokai, Yud Key Vav Key…” “Not know how to…” “Just say it!” “…pronounce letters” “Recognize no feeling never feeling where feeling; feeling cold…” (Circuit overload; pacemaker racing; puffs of smoke; orange rays flashing from robot’s head) “No understand.” Silence.
“Silence is the residue of fear”1 “Fear inspires awe” “All” (malfunction in Speech Recognition Directory:) “Awe not all “
Maybe one day G-d will introduce a minor reorganization within that which is unchanging— to permit a better understanding— until then my robot and I sit together each pilloried in the stock of his own consciousness
Please bring us each to his best clarity and closer to You
“Join the ‘No Understand’ Club: “Nature “Science “Only questions… “No last minute brain soldering “No seven am space shuttle. “No beginning without G-d “No genuine feelings without G-d “No self without G-d “No poem without G-d “No place except G-d “No love without G-d “Nothing at all without G-d.” “Understand.” My robot sinks down stiffly to pray on bended aluminum knees…
“No, your robot brain lies to you— “You will never be able to ‘understand’—to feel G-d’s presence, never really pray to Him or believe in Him. “You cannot fake belief (tho’ some try) “Moreover you will never understand that you will never understand— “G-d as truth is the forever enigma
“Twelve, thirteen or more dimensions of string theory compacted into super symmetry M-theory or any new theory that comes along will always conspire to hide G-d’s force (which is universal and subatomic at the same time) or else falsely identify it as science theory or Nature; catacombs of exploration— “The very state of His hiddenness admits the cause and indeed possibility of His everywhere power and existence:
“The drive to understand…” No, neither robot nor emotions neither poem nor science can understand; and neither do i. —Theone and Robot Jerusalem 1Clint Smith, Phrase from speech “The danger of silence,” TED@NYC transcript, July 2014.
[birds of disparate feathers: a confucian call for commonwealth]
Come, come, you peng From the Zhuangzian northern darkness You swan from the Horatian meadows You pheasant from under Li Bo’s cold moon You oriole from Dufu’s green willow You dove from the Dantean inferno You phoenix from Shakespeare’s urn You swallow from the Goethe oak or The Nerudan dense blue air, you cuckoo From the Wordsworthian vale, you albatross From the Coleridgean fog, you nightingale From the Keatsian plum tree, you skylark Form the Shelleyean heaven, you owl From under the Baudelairean overhanging years You unnamed creature from the Pushkinian alien lands You raven from near Poe’s chamber door You parrot from the Tagorean topmost twig And you crows from among my cawing words
Come, all of you, more than 100 kinds of Birds from every time spot or spot moment Come, with your light but strong skeletons Come, with your hard but toothless beaks Come, with your colored feathers, and flap your wings Against Su Dongpo’s painting brush strokes
Come, all you free spirits of nature Let’s join one another and flock together High, higher up towards mabakoola* —Changming Yuan
*the term ‘mabakoola’ is a word invented for the earthly paradise I have built for myself and those who would share with me in the world of poetry. (C.Y.)
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