[William A. Baurle]

The best thing is to just not give a damn whether your work 'survives'.

I look at it this way:

I write for God, my Maker, and if my work pleases Him (or Her), then I'm happy as a clam.

If God doesn't exist, it doesn't matter. And I don't give a damn.

(The rhyme was accidental)

Jennifer Reeser and Bill Carpenter make my list currently.

I also think Ross is probably right. The best poets have their poems in a bisquit tin or on paper towels, or they are illiterate and compose amazing poems in their brains.

The world is upside down. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first, or something like that...

[Roger Slater]

But William, if God doesn't exist, you should still try to be happy and give a damn. After all, if God did exist, he'd want you to be happy even if He didn't.

[Erik Olson]

"Si Dieu n'existais pas, il faudrait l'inventer." -Voltaire
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
Nihilism, I think, is contrary to poetry; giving a damn, for whatever reason, consistent with it. But what do I know?

[William A. Baurle]

Just to clarify:

I certainly give a damn about poetry, and I certainly give a damn about my own poetry.

What I mean is: I'm not sure I care very much if my work is famous or widely read or if it will survive into the future.

What I care about is the work itself: the making, in imitation of my Maker, imagined or not.

Poetry is my greatest love and it's about the only thing I was ever any good at. I'm just not all that ambitious. Or I'm just lazy, or afraid of failure.

But I'm pretty sure that if I REALLY had a jones for fame or posterity, I would have put much more effort into publishing than I have. It must not be at the top of my list of priorities.

And to clarify further: I have nothing against formal publication, as at least one Spherian thought. In fact, I'm all for it. I have published in a few reputable journals over the years, but my subs were few and far between, and I never went about it with any kind of passion.

I am, however, passionate about writing poetry.

[Erik Olson]

Non, si priores Maeonius tenet
Sedes Homerus, Pindaricae latent,
_Ceaeque, et Alcaei minaces,
_Stesichorique graves Camoenae... HOR.

What though the muse her Homer thrones
_High above all the immortal quire;
Nor Pindar’s raptures she disowns,
_Nor hides the plaintive Cæan lyre;
Alcæus strikes the tyrant soul with dread,
Nor yet is grave Stesichorus unread.

Whatever old Anacreon sung,
_However tender was the Lay,
In spite of Time is ever young,
_Nor Sappho's amorous Flames decay ;
Her living Songs preserve their charming Art,
Her Love still breathes the Passions of her Heart. FRANCIS

William, you mean you won't like Horace vaunt “exegi monumentum aere perennius” ? In what other vocation is there promotion to immortality?
I kid. To be sure, you have it right. To anticipate fame after the grave is vain and impossible to be enjoyed anyway. A literary reputation is a meteor which blazes a while and disappears forever; and if we except a few transcendent and invincible names, which no revolution of opinion or length of time is able to suppress, all those that excite our thoughts, or diversify our discussions are every moment hastening to obscurity.

[Michael F]

Forgive me if I am talking to myself, but it occurs to me that I do know what Miss Emily means in the quote at posts 33 and 35 above: she’s talking about goose-flesh. I get it on the body, but also strongly on the scalp, when I am very moved by something. Of course, her rhetoric is unique: she's Emily Dickinson.

Now it seems obvious, and I wonder why I was perplexed.

[Erik Olson]

I remember when I first read Emily's famous definition of poetry—"if I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry"—and scratching my head.
Though I recalled being physically altered in one respect or other on reading sublime poetry, I experienced a whole range of sensations and nothing so definitive. But as you said, Michael, this is Emily Dickinson's singular rhetoric. Would not exuberance, awe, tenderness, excitement, wit, the noble, the splendid and the terrifying sublime manifest with some variation in one's physical response? Dickinson's definition makes more sense to me when once taken as rather more rhetorical and hyperbolical than literal and absolute.

[Michael F]

Erik,

It is a strange and uncanny and wondrous phenomenon, isn’t it? Involuntary as a hiccough, disobedient as a cat. And as you say, a diverse array of experiences tied together by some invisible thread. When I feel it, it is as if -- for a moment -- I had a hold on my soul.

[W.F. Lantry]

Originally Posted by Erik Olson

Dickinson's definition makes more sense to me when once taken as rather more rhetorical and hyperbolical than literal and absolute.

I take her as being literal and absolute, and know exactly what she's talking about. Sadly, my understanding of brain chemistry is limited, I'm a poet, not a neuroscientist. And it seems there are only a few chemicals involved: dopamine, cortisol, oxytocin, serotonin, gaba. Maybe others, in combination, who knows? But something happens, top of the head, back of the head, somewhere around there. A really good section of poetry induces it. Not light-headedness, exactly, and not precisely the warm glow of orgasmic response, but something in that neighborhood. And it leaves the reader, in this case, me, with a sense of joyful wholeness, a lasting impression of the unity of all being, and a desire to constantly reclaim the immediacy of that sensation.

I think this is what Baudelaire was talking about with his "enivrez-vous sans cesse," although he got the details a little messed up. But the phenomenon is demonstrably real, and, I believe, nearly universal. Most of us experience something like it when encountering true works of art, and the medium doesn't matter so much: poetry, painting, music, they can all induce a variant of the sensation.

Best,

Bbill

[Julie Steiner]

Some folks get ASMR tingles. Some folks don't. It takes all kinds to make a world, as my mother says. (Usually while looking at me.)