| In Search of the Beautiful | ||
Charles Wright Brenda Hillman Mark Jarmon Jane Hirshfield W.S. Merwin and more!
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Poets are the authors of beautiful language. Matthew Arnold put it this way: "But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of excellence." Arnold's touchstone theory was borrowed from the Greeks who argued that excellence and beauty are one and the same thing. Unfortunately, the Era of Belles-lettres has been replaced with the Era of Tabloids, vulgarisms and tasteless confrontations. TV and radio talk shows are the major contributors to the decline of intelligent discourse. If there are no journalistic standards, then everything is permitted. Enter Matt Drudge and cheap-thrills entertainment. Poets, on the other hand, take up Nietzsche's challenge of being responsible guardians of the written word, of keeping the integrity of language alive. In order to express "the familiar in an unfamiliar way," you have to be true to yourself. And that is something journalists and politicians have lost sight of – they haven't a clue of what it means to be honest. When the Buddha asked his students to practice "right speech" he wanted them to understand the principle of acting and speaking so as to aim at being enlightened. "What ought to be done," taught the Buddha, "is neglected, what ought not to be done is done; the desires of unruly, thoughtless people are always increasing." Poetry offers a kind of sanctuary in the doom of our ugly, commercial world. Poetry is "the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge," wrote Wordsworth. This is why all great religious teachers – and I will add, poets – emphasize "right speech." It elevates the speaker and listener into a "finer spirit of knowledge." And just as you cannot expect to become enlightened without self-discipline and work, writing poetry for the most part requires more labor than inspiration. For instance, a poet who becomes impatient with a line that does not correspond to the vision or sound of his or her music is like a classical musician who refuses to put down the cello until it is right. It may take all night. You may lose your sleep. It may not come to you even if you lose your sleep. And when you are about to give it all up, when frustration descends upon you with its futility and waste – those lines, the word you've been waiting for, will mysteriously arrive when you least expect it. And thus, it is not unusual for a poet to swerve off the road in a mad attempt to jot it down quickly in his or her checkbook because there is no other paper available. You are willing to endure the rude honks and the middle fingers, swerving in front of everyone, in order to get that line! Writing poetry is not easy. And anyone who tells you that it is easy probably writes for Hallmark. I'm thinking of Horace who emphasized decorum, by which he means the rightness of each part to the whole. If somebody asked me, What's missing in contemporary journalism? I would answer with this one word: Decorum: the rightness of each part to the whole, "a sense of restraint," as Horace phrased it. I'm afraid that since the Lewinsky episode, journalists will hardly regain that sense of restraint again. And so we must turn to the poets to hear the language of intelligence and good taste. You might say that poets are selectively prudent about their writing, even if the choice of words is offensive or coarse. For example, in this poem by Barbara Molloy-Olund, the poet transforms a rude instance of reality into a reflective moment of questioning:
Someone yells, "fuck you," —"How It Begins"
Punishing people for freedom of expression is certainly not the direction we should take in this country. We don't need the politicians' phony rhetoric of "family values". Government censorship ushers in the consequences of totalitarianism. "Fuck you," could be that kid's only way of saying, "Please! No Big Brother!" No, there is far too much Big Brother as it is. And yet, it seems that something else is missing, as Lillian Hellman used to say. Perhaps we are missing the eloquence of manners and reflection? Remember To Kill A Mockingbird? When I was growing up, Atticus Finch stood as a role model for me in a world that didn't make much sense. (Click here to read my poem, "Watching Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird.") That synthesis of eloquence and reflection is what the Greeks called the Beautiful, and the virtue of Beauty is having a sense of restraint. Can you imagine Atticus being jealous of some CEO making two hundred million more than the other CEO's twenty million a year? Camus wrote that we have exiled Helen (Beauty) with our lack of respect for moderation. Indeed, it would be a revolution of our times if individuals like Atticus became role models for young girls and boys instead of Hollywood freaks like Pamela Lee Anderson and her grossly abusive husband, or CEOs who can't think of anything else except greed for more and more money. At some point, you'd think that the nineties' generation would get fed up with the sleaze, the greed, the violent lyrics, and the empty sex. At some point, you'd think that the Hollywood writers of this garbage would be replaced with writers who have talent and intelligence. Dream on, right? In a world that's gone awry with bad taste, there will always be a minority of individuals who long for the sublime, for poetry. Poetry praises life in its darkest hour. It will not impose a false order of morality. It does not restrict or bind you to someone else's conventional rules. Poetry values truth and reality. The Muse will never play the didactic role of an old spinster with a wicked yardstick. Can a politician like George W. Bush Jr., or a radio moralist like Oliver North express poetic sensibility? These two men would put a Joan of Arc to death. They'd lock up a Camille Claudel without hesitation. And yet, these are the kind of people who are making world policies, who can bomb hospitals and reduce an entire country to ashes while denouncing the "culture of violence," in the words of Hillary Clinton. Would the First Lady care to know how many children were killed with U.S. bombs under their CIA/NATO Kosovo war? No. She would not. You can not be a hypocrite and a poet at the same time. Poets are no angels. But they won't prostitute words; they won't sell language on the cheap for a tabloid buck or a commercial vote. That is why you will rarely see a W.S. Merwin or a Pablo Neruda running for public office. "Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world," wrote Shelley. He also said that "the great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own." Most politicians are too corrupt and egotistical to put themselves in "the place of another and of many others." Poets, on the other hand, create from empathy or as Keats phrased it, "negative capability," that ability to negate your own small ego so that you can put yourself in the place of the other. Whether that "other" is a "bird picking about the gravel," a horse, a tree or a person – the small is negated for the large. Without it, a poet's work would be as hollow and superficial as political rhetoric. In search of the beautiful – that's what we're attempting to remember here at ForPoetry. "The best poetry is what we want;" wrote Arnold, "the best poetry will be found to have a power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can." On that note: Enjoy our Fall Issue! P.S. I'd also like to plug The Cider Press Review. Two poems of mine will be appearing in their premier January 2000 issue (print anthology) and on their web page, "Small Tree" and "The Other Side of the Night." Check out their Website: The Cider Press Review Thanks for reading ForPoetry.com. Keep in touch! We'll be presenting new poems every week.
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