On Poetry
 

Based on some of the recent (and remembered discussions of old) I have been musing on the nature of Poetry. I consider myself the Neophyte in matters poetic and I find that both worrisome and inspiring. The Neophyte inhabits the same corridors as the Master and all in-between. And those corridors are in many ways intimidating and exhilarating. The Neophytes are neither master nor confirmed members of the Order, so fear is present but so is possibility. Those corridors hold mystery, they hold hope! They are filled with wonder and awe of what can be… for the Master those corridors are the land of the familiar and the danger is losing sight of the possible…giving way to the comfortable, and there is no small contentment in the familiar comfortable. The Neophyte needs the master more than the master the neophyte, yet they must dwell together for the good of the whole. Eratosphere seems to be a place where the two can walk together in harmony; rejoicing in what is and yearning for what can still be.

Poetry is that place of wonderment and awe and it is full of possibility that is why Aristotle, in the Poetics, said that Poetry is greater than History because Poetry pertains to what can be, whereas history merely relates what has been.

Is Poetry the art of the song which is not meant to be sung? Is Poetry the spoken song that resonates in the soul and enlivens the heart? The song which does not require well-tuned vocal cords, but rather a well-tuned heart?

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for allowing me to wander these corridors with you and let us hope together that they lead somewhere better than what has been.

Never mind

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Shelley could (maybe) get away with that kind of ecstatic, hallucinogenic gushing. The rest of us should probably keep the “wonderment and awe” rhetoric down to a minimum. We’ve got our hands full with the nitty-gritty (albeit ineffable) business of working with words.

Roaming corridors of mystery and hope, reveling in our resonant souls and enlivened hearts -- that can be trippy good fun. But c’mon.

Maybe it's just me, but the idea of wandering corridors isn't particularly enticing to me. Don't any of the doors open? Aren't there any chairs? Surely there's a better metaphor that applies to what we are doing here. My feet are tired.

But seriously, I'm glad you find poetry and Eratosphere so exciting and inviting. Nothing wrong with enthusiasm.

Well said.

Wow...

The Love of Wisdom begins with wonder and awe (see Plato the Theaetetus and Aristotle the Metaphysics)...cynicism is what happens when hope is extinguished because the sense of wonder and awe have been suppressed.

For me, reality is full of wonder and awe even though there's plenty of grit to go around.

If poetry is not a place for wonder, awe and hope then it isn't worth a piece of single ply recycled toilet paper.

Robert,

All this wonder and awe stuff makes me, well, wonder. It sounds just a tad Kantian. Something about that here.

For myself, I think I prefer Diotima, and her thoughts on Beauty: "One proceeds from recognition of another's beauty, to appreciation of Beauty as it exists apart from any individual, to consideration of Divinity, the source of Beauty, to love of Divinity."

Now, I know, lots of people aren't going to walk all the way along that path, and that's cool. The way of beauty replies to the intimate desire for happiness that resides in the heart of every person, but the Via Pulchritudinis leads in many unexpected directions. Dutton has some interesting thoughts on this subject.

Of course, that's just me. Others will have different, and certainly more articulate views. But for myself, I hope it's always beauty first.

Thanks,

Bill

I was going to respond, "Eww*," but I prefer Quincy's comment.

RHE
*How many w's are there in "Eww"?

Lots. As the Duchess of Windsor once said, "You can never be too rich, or too thin, or have too many "w's" in Eww.

But, Janice, it turns out you can be too thin. So the French Parliament has decreed, declaring that the whole point of 1789 was that fashion models should look the way they thought fashion models ought to look. Not poets, parliamentarians should decide about truth and beauty and urns and wild swans and the rape of locks and stuff like that. Robespierre.

RHE