from John Keats's letter to his friend Richard Woodhouse, October 27, 1818

As to the poetical Character itself, (I mean that sort of which, if I am any thing, I am a Member; that sort distinguished from the wordsworthian or egotistical sublime; which is a thing per se and stands alone) it is not itself—it has no self—it is every thing and nothing—It has no character—it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated—It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philosop[h]er, delights the camelion Poet. It does no harm from its relish of the dark side of things any more than from its taste for the bright one; because they both end in speculation. A Poet is the most unpoetical of any thing in existence; because he has no Identity—he is continually in for—and filling some other Body—The Sun, the Moon, the Sea and Men and Women who are creatures of impulse are poetical and have about them an unchangeable attribute—the poet has none; no identity—he is certainly the most unpoetical of all God’s Creatures. If then he has no self, and if I am a Poet, where is the Wonder that I should say I would write no more?

from Thomas Carlyle's An Essay on Burns (1828)

To every poet, to every writer, we might say, Be true, if you would be believed. Let a man but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, the emotion, the actual condition of his own heart; and other men, so strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sympathy, must and will give heed to him. In culture, in extent of view, we may stand above the speaker, or below him; but in either case, his words, if they are earnest and sincere, will find some response within us; for in spite of all casual varieties in outward rank or inward, as face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man.

from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh (1857)


                                           Shall I fail?
The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase,
"Let no one be called happy till his death."
To which I add,--Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day's out and the labour done;
Then bring your gauges. If the day's work's scant,
Why, call it scant; affect no compromise;
And, in that we have nobly striven at least,
Deal with us nobly, women though we be,
And honour us with truth, if not with praise.

It's two below zero this morning. A batch of Paul's friends decided to have a polar campout last night, but "my kid is too sick to sleep outside in subzero weather" was the perfect excuse for getting out of it. The poor boy crashed and burned during yesterday's basketball tournament; there was much public sobbing; we had a hard day.

Also there was a great deal of affection. On her own volition someone's grandma ran out to buy him a packet of Tums. His friends hugged him on the gym floor. Girls sat next to him on the bench and tried to make him laugh. These are the advantages of having 10 people in your class, all of whom you've known since babyhood. When you are 14 years old and pushing 6 feet tall, and you are collapsed in your mother's lap crying your eyes out smack in the middle of a busy sporting event, no one is the least bit surprised, although they are all very sad for you.

Home

Dawn Potter

So wild it was when we first settled here.

Spruce roots invaded the cellar like thieves.

Skunks bred on the doorstep, cluster flies jeered.

Ice-melt dripped shingles and screws from the eaves.

We slept by the stove, we ate meals with our hands.

At dusk we heard gunshots, and wind and guitars.

We imagined a house with a faucet that ran

From a well that held water. We canvassed the stars.

If love is an island, what map was our hovel?

Dogs howled on the mainland, our cliff washed away.

We hunted for clues with a broken-backed shovel.

We drank all the wine, night dwindled to grey.

When we left, a flat sunrise was threatening snow,

But the frost heaves were deep. We had to drive slow.

[first published in roger (2010); forthcoming in Same Old Story (CavanKerry Press, 2014)]

1. Question of the day: will I or won't I be hauling a carload of middle school boys to a basketball tournament? The Sick One has not yet emerged from his lair, but he seemed to be on the mend yesterday. By evening he had managed to digest a bowlful of red Jello along with a handful of bland crackers, although his mood was not improved by watching the UMaine hockey team lose to Alabama. What could be more embarrassing?

2. The captain of the Maine team is named Spencer Abbott, but last year Paul and I misheard his name, and now we always call him Expensive Rabbit.

3. Red Jello. It's so lurid, squatting there in my refrigerator among the oranges and lettuces. It scares me every time I open the door.

4. Quotation of the day, from James, after arriving home from school and opening the refrigerator: "Ew! Red Jello! Nasty! Can I have some?" (Proceeded to consume 99 percent of the convalescent's only sustenance)

5. New essay out in the Sewanee Review. Click here to read my out-of-context reference to Coleridge's person from Porlock (you, know that guy who interrupted the poet's transcription of his "Kubla Khan" dream).

Buying-parmesan-and-baby-spinach day, writing-about-Lermontov day, making-lemon-tea-for-a-sick-eighth-grader day, scrubbing-said-sick-eighth-grader's-vomit-poisoned-bedroom day, braising-pork-loin-in-milk day. Note how the venial intersects with the transcendent, at least as regards the mysterious workings of the human digestive system. (I'm not sure how Lermontov fits into this metaphor, but maybe I'll work out a link.)

In the anthology I have advanced from the Romantics to the Victorians; and I was just offered a gig in April that involves giving a reading of Szymborska poems. That will be a pleasure. Sometimes I think poets don't get enough chances to perform the work of the poets they love. It would be a joy and a lesson to hold those words in my mouth and then to share them with other people. Maybe someday someone will let me do a full-length public reading of Poems That Changed My Life. Already I am cogitating a list.

Also, this makes me want to teach a class titled Poems That Changed Your Life. Or maybe just put out a collection box labeled "Insert poem that changed your life here. Must include 2-paragraph explanation of  when, why, how. Be cogent, and don't maunder. Overreactions are appropriate, if supported by scintillating grammar. No quoting anyone but yourself and the poem."

Applications are now open for this year's Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching. And scholarships are available; so if you or your colleagues have been toying with attending, you should apply early. I can't wait to sit on Robert Frost's porch with you.

Maybe we'll sit there and drink wine and talk about Wislawa Szymborska, the great Polish poet who died yesterday. Along with Joe Bolton and Hayden Carruth, I count Szymborska among the handful of contemporary poets who changed my life. Maybe I should teach a class with that title: Poets Who Changed My Life. I wonder if students would be bored or fascinated?

I love many Szymborska poems, but this one, "In Praise of My Sister," is a particular comfort . . . living here, as I have for so long, in a faraway land filled with people who do not write poetry . . . all these people whom I love because they don't write poetry. I hope that a few of you readers who visit this blog--you know who you are: the friends who skip the poems I suggest because reading poems makes you uncomfortable or confused, or you're too busy and plan to read them later and then you forget, or you don't trust my taste in poetry but visit here for some other unarticulated reason--I hope you try reading "In Praise of My Sister." I think you will be amazed. You might even cry, in a good way.

Here's the first studio version of String Field Theory playing Sid Stutzman's song "House on a Hill." I don't sing at all on this one, just play fiddle. The band members keep remarking, "You're a poet. How about writing a song?" But I keep changing the subject.

Because today is bread-making day and writing-about-Keats day, I'll share a poem from How the Crimes Happened that doesn't mention Keats, although it does seem to mention almost everything else. As you can see, it would make a terrible bluegrass song.

Aubade

Dawn Potter

And what about the small eye, Walter?—

the leaves of grass you overlooked, winter

lichen clutching fenceposts, a draggled

dead squirrel in the snowbank, the red

letters of my name, serif by slant?

It was bliss you sighed, panted,

howled for: the View from Space—

big comet Walt chasing Madam Eos

across a streaky sky, old guilty dawn

tempting another kosmic shaman

to lurch word-drunk from the rafters . . .

oh, I grieve for every morning-after

groan rising from your sallow bed

as I fire your cookstove, bake your bread.

The other night Paul started pacing around the house excitedly, talking, as usual, about whatever information was presently cluttering up his brain. Frequently that means baseball stats or facts about Genghis Khan, but on this particular night he was talking about writing.

"Do you know what I mean, Mom, when I say I write by rhythm?" he asked me.

I did fall off my chair. (This is not a metaphor. Embarrassing but true.) But of course I knew what he meant because that's how I write too.

"Do you mean," I asked, "that you hear the sound of what should come next but that you don't necessarily know what word it should be?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" he shouted.

This was an epiphany for both of us, a glorious moment of writerly parent-child bonding that was appropriately squelched when James remarked,

"You want to know how I write? I write by sarcasm."