[Janet Kenny]

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

Janet - I am genuinely (hopefully you know me well enough to accept that) interested in what you hint at here.

1) Examples of alleged expressions which embarrass us?

I can't produce one immediately. I mean noisy rapture and excitement rather than speechless suspension in another state.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

2) As someone who has experienced ecstasy in a rather singular way I find the idea of being silent about it difficult to understand.

That moment in a concert hall before the applause breaks out.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

But as for poetry in general. I think it is unreasonable to expect the reader to get out what you did not put in. Not everyone wants the reader to experience ecstasy - and that is fine. But if you do want that response there is no way in the world to craft it into being - you have to genuinely feel it.

It is often through the text in a way that is not possible to describe. Better so, usually.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

To have one's poetry of that kind judged by others, though, is in a way to "put one's self on offer". And that is the difficult, albeit rewarding, bit.

Always. But you don't explain or describe it. It is a state of being.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

If one sets out merely to obey the rules of craft and form then one only stands to be judged by one's success at adhering to them. Which to me feels safer. But adherence to rules of form and craft by no means excludes the expression of true emotion or ecstasy. Hopkins was most certainly a formalist.

So was Bach.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

I think there is a very genuine sense in which people these days are embarassed, as Mark says, to say what is in their heart (although I imagine it is no longer OK to speak of the "heart" as the seat of emotion in the same way that, as I was recently advised in these pages, it is no longer "good form" to speak of the "soul" as the seat of other sensibilities).

I'm not. I'm just embarrassed by a whipped up false rapture that is mistaken for the real thing.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

Chinese and Japanese (classical) poetry are great examples of how ecstatic emotion can be conveyed simply and without reort to wailing or chest-beating or free-form confessional.

So is much plain poetry written by our near contemporaries.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

What is a haiku but the ecstasy of the moment encapsulated in what is a very exact and demanding form? Ecstasy doesn't have to declare itself from the rooftops, it can be inherent in a quiet (if not silent) and reverential way

I'd better be honest here and say that on the whole I dislike English-language Haikus.

Originally Posted by Philip Quinlan

Edited in to say: of course one can be stunned into silence by the truly beautiful, but later (when it is recollected in tranquillity perhaps?) there is very often a case for saying something about it.

But the saying is done after the experience. Nothing against that.

I have a poem coming out soon which does all of the above. I hope ;-)
Janet