Anyway, as I've fidgeted with the essay, I've been reading W. H. Auden's The Dyer's Hand, a collection of observations about poetry--primarily Shakespeare's work but also Auden's own perceptions about the process of making art. Here is one of them:
The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid. Moreover, unlike a scientist, he is usually even more ignorant of what his colleagues are doing than is the general public. A poet over thirty may still be a voracious reader, but it is unlikely that much of what he reads is modern poetry.
As I copy out this paragraph, I feel that Auden is looking me in the eye. It is a great relief to be told that how I live my life as a poet is, in Auden's opinion, the natural way for a poet to live. At the same time, I doubt very much if this observation would be true of most poets today. It seems to me that everyone else is reading contemporary poetry, that I am a freak because I am not--really, more than a freak: an insult. People get angry at me. They really do. They presume that I am either too arrogant to read the work of my peers or that I am a tedious reactionary. Half the time I believe them; half the time I forget them. Nonetheless, like an addict, I never change my ways. Today I will go back to copying out Wordsworth's Prelude. Nothing new there. You want to know what the title of my new manuscript is? Same Old Story. Ain't it the truth? If you don't believe me, just ask Auden. Or Shakespeare. Now I'm sounding arrogant again. But if I'm a humble serf in the potato fields of poetry, those are the potatoes I'd rather be digging.
6 comments:
The "freak" is the person who has no knowledge of or appreciation for what has come before.
Rock on with Auden and Wordsworth and Shakespeare.
Thanks, Maureen. I think I will.
Here's another friend's take on today's post:
"Traders have a zone as well. It is when good decisions come naturally without explicit forethought. The enemy of trading is emotion. I can watch someone trade for an hour and know more about them than their spouse, at least as far as how they make decisions. Bad traders - most people on the planet - hold onto losses or worse yet buy more of a losing investment. They sell winning stocks to buy more of the bad ones. This is emotional thinking - I chose this stock so it must be right. When it begins to lose money, emotion kicks in even more.
My old boss used to change the closing prices on the stocks in his portfolio every day after the market had closed. He would make it so every position showed a smaller gain or a bigger loss than was actually the case. The next day, unless things had really gone against him, his portfolio would look like it was making money right from the start. This would give him the emotional boost necessary to sell anything that was losing him money. That emotional thing works both ways - being in the zone means letting go of things that don't serve your goals.
I think I have touched on this point with you before but the fact that Baron uses the phrase really tickled me."
At the Dodge Festival I was on the "Saying the Unsayable" panel with Santee Frazier and Jericho Brown (two wonderful, gutsy contemporary poets, by the way). An audience member asked "What poets do you read to give you the courage to write what you have to write?" Santee and Jericho rattled off names of contemporary poets (I didn't have a pen handy but wish I had had one). I mentioned Plath, Wormser and Wiler and then added: But I always go back to Keats because you can learn a great deal about not only the art of writing but also about "saying the unsayable" from Keats. Need I say my Keats "shout out" was met with a blank-faced silence?
Last comment about Keats was from me. I keep forgetting to add my name!!!
And yet Keats is one of the few old poets that people still actually claim to read. Good thing you didn't say Donne. You might have been politely escorted off the premises.
Yes, if I had said Donne then "blank faces" might have escalated to objects being thrown at me :)
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