Re: What little I know - poetry between the lines
Mattis Fishman (mattis@argos.argoscomp.com)
Mon, 08 Jun 1998 13:26:37 -0400 (EDT)
Dear Camille and all,
What a nice thing it is that our list extends until the far antipodes.
To tell the truth, I wasn't all that excited by Scottie's description
of an aboriginal cocktail party, but how can I fail to appreciate our
austral brethren (sisthren?) when I read my email at 1 AM, New York time,
and can try again at 8:30 AM and find a half dozen messages. Of course
our early rising European contingent may take credit too.
Even nicer, and more amazing, is that Camille in her continuing the
discussion of the poet/saint connection, in addition to having added
some thoughtful observations, managed to address the paragraph that I
deleted from my original post and never sent.
What I had considered writing was that while the poet may not be a saint,
the saint is a poet in the sense that his words may carry overtones
enabling the hearer/reader to see Meaning, Beauty, Truth beyond the
actual sense of the words - a between the lines, blank haiku, poetry.
As alluring as this sounds, though, I couldn't bring myself to say this.
There may be true beauty in a single word, and there may be something
poetic in a sincerely whispered phrase but I feel it is the ability
of the poet to create a world of meaning and let us see, or try to, as he
does, that creates poetry. I think that when we are asked to find profundity
in a cigar butt or a blank sheet of paper, the asker is holding up a mirror and
letting us see only what we are able to let be reflected. While it may
be enlightening, even gratifying, it is self-driven and more like an
encounter group than literary communication. By the way, please don't think
that I don't enjoy this blank haiku genre, I only question the appropriateness
of calling it poetry.
Then again, calling this type of reading experience self-driven may
answer the question of why reading Salinger makes us think of poetry.
There may not be any poems on the page or even between the lines, yet by
the precise and well crafted framing and phrasing we may be led to provide
the poetry ourselves.
Just one more thing (because I would rather be considered verbose
than pseudo-profound and a zen wannabe). I simply mean by that last paragraph
that if we consider the task of the poet to see something and then transmit
his private insight to us, then someone who can hold that same something up
silently for our observation and make us care enough to look at it ourselves
with the same sort of eyes is inviting us to be poets.
All the best,
Mattis
(p.s. I apologize if this arrives twice, my mail software seems to indicate
that this never made it out, so I am sending it again)