*I fully intended to place this in "General Talk" but realized it would function nicely here. I am however going to leave it as is and pray that not much offense is taken by the moderator(s).
The Law of Moons
I am going to break one of my rules and violate a promise to the Duchess that I not digress in the "General Talk" forum.* It is clear that I have opinions that are not in agreement with a majority of poets (the vocal ones anyway). However I have found it impossible to state a valid case elsewhere due to the fact that it would disrupt Ms. Espaillat's wonderfully well intentioned desire to ?workshop/critic a given number of submitted poems in the Lariat thread, poems that were all developed here at the Able Muse. This introduces the first problem with that kind of exercise. It is not clear whether I should expect Ms. Espaillat to "criticize formally" a poem or to fix a poem. Not sure what I should do either to be quite honest and there is a desire to share my input (my desire). Out of respect to this well known poet I'd like to say my opinion is not meant to trump hers but to serve as an adjunct. It applies most definitely to Mastery and the Classics in the application of certain words to modern works of poesy.
What are my qualifications? None really.
For those that are angered by this kind of thing or by me, please stop reading here, save yourself some time.
Now, in regards to the notion of overused/cliche words and this curious little idea called The Law of Moons. As a group of professionals (yes, like the clergy, like lawyers and doctors I believe poetry to be a PROFESSion). It professes to hold certain ethics, certain standards although unlike many professions, no license is required to say, "I am a poet." That credential is held via the acknowledgement that a poet has a certain expertise, and holds a certain trust for the reader, very much like the clergy holds the faith of the believer as a sacred entity. As a group of professionals, we as poets have certain tools that we use and manipulate everyday, much like a surgeon holds a scalpel or a lawyer flays the law in front of a jury. These tools are words and ideas. When it comes to certain words that evoke powerful and well-understood human emotions, we must take particular care not to administer them in over-large amounts because they can become toxic i.e. cliche. The "Moon" is, for me, the cardinal example of this case. We see the Moon everyday and it evokes feelings of all kinds. I remember rising early one morning to a full moon only to discover a half hour later that it was just a sliver. I didn't know there was an eclipse and questioned my senses. A few hours later, I read in the newspaper that the eclipse was predicted. I felt a bit like a cave wo-man. Did I write a lovely poem about it? No but now I'm using that valuable experience to relate the idea that the Moon influences us all the time. Here in the Islamic world we literally gauge our calendars by it as opposed to the solar calendar, it symbolizes TIME (a pretty important device in poetry if you ask me, time). But back to the point. Powerful words like Moon, Dance, Crows (to name a few) are much used and sometimes to stupendous effect throughout the history of poetry and language. It seems to me though that the frequency I see these mystical and powerful words used "nowdays" demonstrates that those same words can become watered down by our overly frequent use of them. They are not "cliche" in the popularly understood definition of cliche, but we as poets are rapidly making them so. And often, gasp!, they are a crutch that prevents the poet from seeking more brilliant devices in the language, crossing the borders so to speak. We can't make better "art" than has already been made but we can express this excellence called art in new and surprising ways. If we don't...well then...good luck. And I would certainly hope that my surgeon isn't overly reliant on leeches. I have seen them used brilliantly to remove necrotic tissues from burn victims but never to solve the common cold.
Do I suggest others have to agree with me on this? No, certainly not and there are times, like in the Dance poem in Rhina's thread that it is absolutely necessary although perhaps not justified to use these abused words (in that case the metaphor IS dance/poetry). Whether or not I would choose this particular metaphor is beside the point. It seems though that trying to establish a sense or a definition and justification as to why poets need to adopt a method of (sic) the same, angers some and violates some ill placed concept of "censorship". I cannot censor anyone's poems nor would I want to. I would however lay claim to the notion that I am entitled to voice an opinion that I personally find particularly valuable and would hope that it is valuable to others in their development of a "tool chest" of terms, words, ideas. I most definitely believe that poetry is a process, not an end point. I would hate to think that I'd already written my best poem/poems. That would be just more than I could bear.
The Law of Moons is actually a short poem but I cannot post that here. It says all of this in a much smaller space. Funny how that works
I'm sure there are folks here who can post their favorite and classic Moon excerpts to demonstrate how potent the Moon actually is in poetry and how it should be a term that is treasured and hoarded as one of the jewels we possess in our tool chests.
The moon in the Koran is one of the signs of "The End of the Times." I'm leaving off with that idea, spreading it out as my personal idiosyncratic addition in stating that if the Moon was chosen by God(my creator maybe not anyone else's for the agnostics/atheists in attendance) to represent an event so significant that it literally conditions us to the End of the World, then it must be a pretty important idea. Neil Armstrong might agree.
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