I am a "Formalist," as I guess you use the term. I write very few poems in free verse. And yes, I like the company of poets who are interested in matters of technique and form. That's how I found my way here. But all poets are, for better or worse, formalists in a larger sense. I remember something Henri Coulette wrote about himself: "I consider myself a maker, not a Bard, with all that that implies." Anyone who wants to make poems is using "form, either well or badly. In order to write well, you have to know, simply, everything, about the art. Good poems can be written in free verse, of course, but they still have to be made artfully. I guess I was just being a wiseass when I was writing the stuff you were quoting above.
Here is a poem I wrote recently for one of our really accomplished members, Bob Mezey, until recently a neighbor of mine in Claremont . He has moved to the other side of the country, and I miss him. I think the poem will show my feelings about "form" better than an essay.
To A Dear Friend Who Is Living Far Away
after an ancient Chinese poem by Po Chui
Only a year ago, I met a friend,
a master in the art of poetry.
I had been reading his books since I was young
and many of the poems I knew by heart.
My poems were clearly the work of an apprentice
but he was kind and generous to me
and welcomed me as a fellow in the art.
Many the hours we charmed with talk of verse.
We quoted favorite lines to one another,
often the other's favorites as well.
Some well-loved poems we would recite together
as if we were chanting scripture, or a prayer.
Long ago, a poet friend once asked him,
"How many people in the world tonight
are thinking about the meters?" We thought about them,
we talked about them. Hell, we reveled in them,
with the love that masquerades as pure technique.
I think back often to the night we met
and started talking about poetry.
The doors of Heaven opened in my mind.
I would have laughed, had someone told me then
that after only one brief year had gone
I would be struggling with how to say farewell
to someone I had simply grown to love
as a father, brother, teacher and dear friend.
His house is sold. He is living far away.
Tonight I dreamed that he was back in Claremont
and I saw again the face of an old friend.
He seemed to be saying that nothing had really changed.
Words can travel at the speed of light
and we will go on talking as before.
I woke up and thought he was still talking to me.
I turned on the light. There was no one there at all.
On a night like tonight, missing his company,
I will sit at my wooden table under the trees.
A candle will illuminate the page
on which I'll write some words to send to him,
hoping to make him smile, and touch his heart.
I don' t know how to italicize on these posts. "How many
people in the world tonight are thinking about the meters?" is something Henri Coulette said. "The love that masquerades as pure technique " is a line from a poem by Donald Justice. "Hell, we reveled in them," is an imitation of something Robert Frost said. Mezey, Justice, Coulette, and Frost--what a fine company of poets. I like to think of them as great poets, rather than thinking of them as great "Formalists." Of course it goes without saying that all of them are masters of the formal aspects of our ancient art.
[This message has been edited by Michael Creagan (edited December 04, 2002).]
|