Poetry and poets. As I sat here to begin my blog, having no idea what I was going to share, I began to think about the process of writing. I opened up one of my old journals. Back in the seventies I read voraciously – philosophical works – trying to understand myself and my place in the world, and my purpose. I made mad jottings in the margins of books and copied great passages from the works of those I considered masters of writing and philosophy – among them Henry Miller, DH Lawrence, Herman Hesse.
I just found this, copied by me from a book by Max Weber, a painter from the Steiglitz Circle around 1913.
‘Communicate with God and the great masters. Do your practical work in the practical world for practical purposes, and then lock yourself up in your silent chamber of art, and pour out your woes and pangs, and sound them with beautiful melodies, harmonies and variations masterly and pure, and ideal – such as God enabled you to do. Silence and solitude are great factors in the lives of creators.’ –
Max Weber
This said so much about me at the time, and is true today of those who create art.
I loved the poetry of Rod McKuen. He was THE poet of the era – the poet for the common man perhaps.
I retrieved some of his books from my personal library recently. His poems are just caressing – sad most of them. I just opened up his ‘Seasons in the Sun’ to find this one.
Pushing the Clouds Away
Clouds are not
the cheeks of angels
you know
they’re only clouds.
Friendly sometimes,
but you can never be sure.
If I had longer arms
I’d push the clouds away
or make them hang
above the water
somewhere else,
but I’m just a man
who needs and wants,
mostly things he’ll never have.
Looking for that thing
that’s hardest to find –
himself.
I’ve been going
a long time now
along the way
I’ve learned some things
You have to make
the good times yourself
take the little times
and make them into big times
and save the times
that are alright
for the ones
that aren’t so good.
I’ve never been able
to push the clouds away
by myself
Help me.
Please.
Watching this as I typed it, made me think of format in poetry. We each have our own style. This poem of Rod’s shows how the modern poets of that time – the seventies – defied the age-old formality of rhyme, line structure and punctuation. We all went a bit hay-wire in defiance. (PS – My computer refuses to set the lines of Rod’s poem in his original format. It wants to tidy them up, push them all up against the margin. I just googled the poem and even Google wants to tidy it up. You’d have to purchase the book).
I am compiling all of my works slowly, and editing, polishing and pushing them into the shape of the style of my work today. But into the plastic sleeves of the folders in which I am inserting them, I am including the originals. My treasured art teacher of bygone days, Flossie Pietsch, advised me to do this. She spoke of how we are often critical of early works, but how important it is to keep them – to show how our work has evolved. In my poetry today I use no punctuation. The punctuation is created by the format and the length of the lines which create pauses, even question marks.
To follow are some jottings from one of my journals –
# What we think of as the real world is perhaps not as real as the world of our inner selves which can be manifested in poetry. Sometimes I speak of being dragged from poetry back to reality. But which IS the reality? I suspect that at our core dwells truth, before it is brought to the surface as thought, mulled over, weighed and sorted. Sometimes a poet is able to drop snippets of that truth directly onto paper, but it is often difficult for them to interpret or even comprehend what they have written. One can often sense this purity (or lack of it) in works of art.
# In the distance I saw a ribbon of pelicans blown by comradery through Coorong skies.
# My guitar is full of old songs. I’ll have to remove some of those before there is room for the new. Or would a vital part of me go too?
# Snippets come easier than long works that come in their own time – like sauce from a bottle upturned but not shaken.
# A year ago life was more painful. Two years ago I didn’t exist. A girl laid out a rug in Spring and looked like me.
# To make my cup of Milo and go to bed is to admit defeat, but de feet won’t get in without de legs and de legs is stayin’.
# I can’t go away. My garden is too nice a place to be in. But then again, so is my skin.
Now some news of my life today, which is where I am peaceful and feel safe –
We have recently spent a few days at the top of Spencer Gulf. I have a girlfriend who has a shack in the charming seaside settlement of Fisherman Bay – a place of real shacks – an architecture unparalleled in my eyes. In these places, fishermen acquired from farmers tiny plots of land where they built basic structures of shelter for when they went fishing. They were built usually of salvaged materials and furnished with passe furniture and fittings. The charm and uniqueness of them has always held a special place in my heart. Over the years I guess the fit-outs have changed again, probably with more bits and pieces that have been replaced by newer, more modern household items. Honestly, this town just has to be seen to be believed. There is even a row of community long-drop dunnies (from days of old thankfully).
What we found there could only be described as peace and serenity. I guess in holiday time the place is a hive of activity, but for us, this time, we hardly saw another soul. Sunsets over the water just made us still.
As ever, I am grateful for the life I have had, and am having.
Warmly,
Sue
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