words on fire

In the poetry class I took in those days of yore three-and-a-half years ago, (back when I still believed in a variety of things that have since proven to be one of the following:  true, incredibly true, indescribably true, and absolutely, horribly false.  Yes, I was right about almost everything.  That's my way.), the very same poetry class that provided the impetus that introduced me to the catalyst that got this blog up and running, I was given a very valuable, possibly invaluable, piece of advice by my professor, whose words ever rang clearly and positively with the unmistakable timbre of truth.

I had floated to her the idea of gifting my wife a poem for our 4th wedding anniversary, an idea I found to be utterly romantic, a true present of one's self, my soul wrapped up in some ink and paper.  My professor, in her wisdom, drew me up short.  Shaking her head, she told me it would be a terrible idea to make such a gift, at least to a non-poet.  She was bound not to get it (at least, not in the fancy-poem way I'd intended), and then I was bound to be awfully upset, and the whole thing would be a shambles.

It was a good point.  When you're getting someone a gift, get them something they can appreciate, not something that's special to you.  That professor had a lot of great advice when it came to poems, and I'm not done relating it to you, you lucky dog.

The next piece of tender guidance she offered was this:  do not rely on your emotions to fuel your poetry.  She had no problem with emotions being present in poems as such, but she was wary of their serving as the sole inspiration for the works.  Believe it or not, it is very possible to run out of emotions this way!  It can lead to very fertile works, but few of them, and that's not what makes a good poet.  Poets must add inspiration to the world, not subtract it.

This is a lesson I am still trying to learn.  Poetry is a noble and admirable endeavor, and I don't want to cheapen it by getting my feelings all over it.  But it's so tempting to relate a story that moved me in such florid language as to obscure, a little bit, the honest pain that waits inside.  That creates, in the poem, a little escape for me, a little safe spot where I can go to express my pain without activating all the world's mechanisms that spring into motion the instant a privileged person like me says "OUCH, MY SOUL".

I wrote those raw poems.  I shared them with my class.  By and large, it freaked them out.  Their most common response was to say "are you okay?"  I tried to tell them that yes, for their purposes I am fine, and please judge the poem on its own merits and don't treat me like I'm taking the bandage off of a third degree burn.  That's what I'm doing, spiritually, but I want feedback, not sympathy.  I want to be corrected, not consoled.

You were probably hoping to read a poem, but I'm not quite ready to share a full one yet.   Instead, let me offer you the first two stanzas of the poem I shared part of two years ago, "A Surfeit of Wishes".

Oh, did I write this.

Over and over again, I wrote it-

I wrote it with tears on the floor,

With the look in my eyes across a table,

With my jaw working soundlessly.

I wrote and unwrote with the fury of one

Driven by the endless roaring gulph inside,

Who sought just a moment’s rest from fire.

Having cast the words into the flames, I realized late

That smoke, too, sends a message.