"The poet is the priest of the invisible." – Wallace Stevens
"Poetry makes nothing happen." – W.H. Auden
"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." – Percy Bysshe Shelley (And knowing what we do about legislators, that poet make nothing happen comes as no surprise.)
All of these are fun to think about, think through or think around, but the one I've continually turned over in my head is from that patron saint of curmudgeonly grumps, Uncle Tommy himself:
"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things." – T.S. Eliot
The not-so-subtle elitism doesn't impress me much anymore, but I've always tried to understand what he meant about escaping personality. What would that mean, especially in the context of writing? What would that sound like? Is that even something desirable?
I have to start with my belief that there's no-one alive who didn't at least begin writing poetry to express their personality: whether it's a love sonnet, existential angst, a political call to arms or an identity manifesto, we just need to get our thoughts and feelings out. We just need to be heard and, as the poet Madonna herself said: express yourself.
But I'm starting to change my mind. Maybe a poem is a way of creating something solid, completely apart from us. Maybe a poem is more like a chair: it has a purpose even if no-one's sitting in it. We don't need the craftsman's thoughts on life, her political perspective, even her signature, in order to participate in the reason the chair was crafted.
Now, I'm not doubting all of those aforementioned items inform the decisions that lead to the final product. It could well be illuminating and enhance my enjoyment of sitting in that chair to have a sense of the person behind it. But it's in no way essential.
Yet here's a fun thing: last year I read a biography of T.S. Eliot and it BLEW MY MIND how personal his poems are. In high school, I first read his late-period "Four Quartets" and I was impressed by the quality of the verse, the stateliness, the philosophical urgency:
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden
But for all its strengths, I also thought it lacked the panache, the punch of earlier poems like "Prufrock" or "Ash-Wednesday." They seemed colorless, lacking a personal touch.
Except this bio describes specific days, specific outings, specific landscape features that Eliot was referencing! It's not just any old passage, any old door, any old rose-garden: he's describing one superlative day in 1934 on the grounds of a mansion in Gloucestershire with an almost-but-never-quite love, Emily Hale.
So on the one hand, this is the most self-indulgent impulse, the one everybody starts from, the stuff of embarrassing teen journals and cryptic Facebook posts. On the other, this is a poet trying to take the raw material of his life and REMOVE HIMSELF FROM THE EQUATION.
Or is he? It's hard to tell. He's tricky that way.
So all of this to say, today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Here's something from a couple of years ago that seems relevant both to the discussion and to the day.
The Prank
They ring the bell and run.
I should expect it tonight. It’s the night
our house covered in white paper
soaks up turned eggs and the flaming brown bag.
The gourd is crushed, tradition fulfilled.
There’s sugar on my hands
melted, waxy. I give it up
I offer it freely.
My clothing is changed, the harvest brought in.
Descend storm clouds, raindrops, leaves.
I carry my head in my hands
like an orange basketball, jaw framed
and candle lit, stuck deep in my mouth
silent, illuminated.
Children are dressed carefully, tended.
They line up at the doorstep,
the ghosts receiving my blessings
this year, this season.
I’m snarling. I’m howling at the moon.
I’m not a man.
I’m not weeping.
