Power to the Poets
I have been called a poet among other things, but we won't go there, and that's important - that I be called a poet, not the places we'll avoid, rather than my simply saying so. It isn't considered right to do the Napoleanic thing and place the crown on your own head. The declaration needs to come from outside, but there's no requirement for elevated status on the part of the declarer. If someone tells you you're a poet, that's it. You're anointed. Go do poetic things. Say something. Write something.
I know there's a tendency to want it to really mean something, but this isn't a pronouncement like you get from an umpire or a justice of the peace. It's not a beatification here. You're a poet.
It wasn't always that way perhaps. In old Scandinavia you had the scoep who had done a prodigous amount of work to achieve that position and who would rehearse the history of your tribe or retell stories of heroes like Beowulf while the clan pounded time on their shields. Waaay back in Babylon there were keepers of the peoples' history in memorized poems that were thousands of lines in length. Same all over the ancient world, I believe. Some groups used memory aids like rhyme or rhythm, but mostly the poet worked hard to learn the work by rote and then passed it on in similar fashion.
And I shouldn't be a demonstration of false modesty here. There's poets and there's poets just like there's scientists and there's scientists. Nobel prizes - even simple recognition by peers - doesn't come to all of them, but they are members of their fraternity nonetheless. I work at writing poems, and it is hard work at times, but fantasies aside I'm not in the same league as my mentors in this calling.
I was prompted to my musings on this topic by the latest substack item from one of my teachers, Margaret Atwood. She can always be counted on for simple modesty in telling stories on herself as much as for Nobel-worthy expression in her craft. The story first. Here she is recounting an experience from Spain.
I puzzled my Catalonian-language publishers at a lunch we were having. They offered a well-known Spanish-language toast – “Salud, amor y pesetas; y tiempo para gastarlas:” May you have health, love, and money, and the time to spend them. And I replied with a Scottish toast: “Here’s to us! Whae’s like us? Damn few, and they’re all dead.” This actually means that the company present are as fine and brave and accomplished as the honoured ancestors who have gone before them, but my Catalan hosts thought I was saying, “May we all be dead.” Silence fell.
And I was going to paraphrase her serious observations on the craft of poetry and the fate of poets, but she says it too well to have me dilute any of it. Here's the central message:
The art of poetry is passed, not from hand to hand, or even from page to page via the written word, but from mouth to ear to mouth; it is the voice and mind and heart in action, the crucible of language, the sibling of music, and its lineage goes far, far back into human prehistory, long before the invention of writing. Magic and incantations, prayers and blessings and curses, evocations, celebrations and rituals, praises of life and of nature, love poems, sex poems, calls to war, elegies commemorating deaths, epics and sagas recounting a culture’s history and mythology, mourning songs for the deaths of loved ones – all of these form the core of human experience, and poetry everywhere has always been central to this core.
Poets and bards have been feared as well as revered, since the powers they wielded through language were long thought to be prodigious. Even in our modern times, when political regimes have changed violently, poets have been among the first to be silenced, because they might speak the forbidden, and speak it compellingly, and autocrats find that threatening. We have not forgotten the fates of Federico Garcia Lorca, of Pablo Neruda, or of Osip Mandelstam. We have not forgotten the Night of the Murdered Poets in the Soviet Union in 1952 during which thirteen poets were killed, or the torture and murder of Victor Jara in Chile by the Pinochet regime.
Such stories go on and on and back and back, all the way to the patron saint of murdered poets, Orpheus, the magical but dismembered enchanting singer of Greek legend.
So, what did happen to Federico Garcia Lorca, Neruda, Mandelstam, Jara and the Murdered Poets of 1952 Moscow? Here's the roll call in remembrance of what made them "feared as well as revered":
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca: (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was shot and killed by Spanish Nationalist militia.
Pablo Neruda: (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973) murdered in Santiago hospital by Pinochet agents.
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam: (4 January 1891 – 27 December 1938) died of typhus in Russian prison camp in Stalinist purge.
Víctor Lidio Jara Martínez: (28 September 1932 – 16 September 1973) tortured and shot dead in Santiago after coup by Pinochet.
Night of the Murdered Poets: 12 August 1952 involved the torture and execution of 13 Soviet Jews in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
They didn't go quietly either. Here's a few of their comments - certainly cause for murder by any self-important, truth-fearing dictator.
re Neruda:
During a search of the house by Chilean armed forces, Neruda famously remarked: "Look around – there's only one thing of danger for you here – poetry."
re Osip Mandelstam:
"Only in Russia is poetry respected, it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?"
What's the feature of poetry that makes it appear so threatening to power? Here's my take on it. What's yours?
It's concise: This isn't War & Peace here or even a novel by Dostoyevsky or Solzhenitsyn. You aren't immersed in The Pentagon Papers; just some succinct description of evil.
It's memorable: Rhyme and rhythm may help to make it so, as does directness of language giving voice to common experience - "what oft was thought but n'er so well expressed" as Mr. (18th century) Pope noted.
It's vivid: Marshall McLuhan quipped, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a metaphor?” McLuhan was riffing (memorably) on a line from Browning, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Dictators hate it when kids on playgrounds are skipping rope to jingles that lampoon their policies.
And you knew from the start that you weren't going to get to the end of this essay without being (treated to), (exposed to), (burdened with) some of my poetry. Stop now or be forever (indoctrinated by), (cursed with), (traumatized by) these lines:
OK, forewarned and all that …
I'm going for new forms or formats in my poetry. The Glossettes you've already heard about, although for those of you who are recent followers I will provide an example. But my more recent endeavours relate to Shakespeare. I decided to use a line from one of the Bard's plays as the final line of a sonnet – a Shakespearean or English sonnet as opposed to a Petrarchan or Italian one. Enough teacher talk. Here's some:
Julius Caesar Act I Sc 1
Marullus on the Roman mob
He knew whereof he spoke though tactlessly
in observation of the hoi polloi
that gave its loyalty so fatuously
to generals who their armies might deploy
to quell dissention, rebel thought restrain,
or share the stolen wealth from victories
in foreign, far-from-civilized, domain.
Marullus then, considering the ease
of adulation by the Roman mob
for Caesar who had crossed his Rubicon
to seize an empire in the rising throb
of fame, their perfidy pronounced upon.
Beware this man, usurping power of kings –
"You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things."
Macbeth Act I Sc 4
Learning Deception
We see a child's face as an open book,
no subtrefuge, no cunning under mask,
and any eye may read if they would look
to find the thoughts behind, an easy task.
What actions planned, in progress or complete
are there inscribed in graphic, bold relief;
appearance otherwise though none too neat
yet cherub gaze alone compels belief.
Alas, the years instruct us in the art
of camouflaging crimes or devious thought
to show the world a countenance, in part
to thwart detection of some evil wrought.
And innocent perception lacks the grace
"to find the mind's construction in the face."
Macbeth-2 Act I Sc 2
Toil & Trouble
The Doctrine of Discovery said it once
bestowing pious tone on rampant greed.
Today, a "Manifest Destiny" theory fronts
invasion, lets a weaker nation bleed
to satisfy a planet's billionaires'
addiction to the insulating power
of wealth that indiscriminately, shares
security with sycophants who cower
before its brute insensate posturings.
Now Trump with Netanyahu blends
a clan with Putin, of despotic kings
whose moral breach, morality offends.
That cautious clique a winking friendship feign
enquiring "When shall we three meet again?"
And because you probably want me to lighten up a bit, here's one we can all relate to, I think.
Julius Caesar Act III Sc 4
Prostation Explanation
I know that women are too often cursed
with problems anatomical - seem hexed.
No wonder they so oftentimes have nursed
resentment, and unfeeling partners vexed.
First menstrual complications, then the age
of sudden heat insuffrable and mates
who cannot comprehend nor ever gauge
emotions in their partner's mental states.
All these conditions complicate her life,
and yet in retribution, grinning Fate
decreed that males would also suffer strife.
Possessed of failing prostates, soon or late
they'll want those damned "Depends" for when
"There is a tide in the affairs of men."
You can't leave without being Glossetted - a poetic riff on a few lines from a Canadian poet or songwriter. Here's a lighter one from a recent book and as a closing nod to Margaret Atwood. You can check it out on my "Books" page.
You fit into me/ like a hook into an eye
a fish hook/ an open eye
Margaret Atwood “you fit into me”
Entendres for Intendeds
Love idioms were made
for idiots in love,
for if you think
there is some deep
and heartfelt meaning
in these expressions
of your love,
you might unpack
the imagery
after romance has gone,
as our own Margaret might.
"Hand in glove" for Bismark
"Head over heels" for Robespierre
"Tie the knot" in Alcatraz
"A soft spot in my heart" to Dr Barnard
"Have the hots" for Torquemeda
Well, now you've got the process
you may never again use these,
unsullied by the implications
in your entertaining mind, to say:
I've got a crush on you
who take my breath away
and tug at my heartstrings.
Be my main squeeze,
my flaming love
as in our burning desire
we take the plunge,
blinded by love.