I’ve been asked from time to time why I write poetry, and moreover why I write the way in which I do. After I get past the flippant answers I am usually tempted to provide as rejoinder to such inquiries, and at last give the question something of the thought it warrants, my response generally is something like this:
My greatest hope and my greatest joy in writing – what one might term my purpose – is to illuminate my topic: the shedding of light, so to speak, on whatever it is I might be writing about. I desire to do this for both myself and for anyone who cares to read/listen to my offerings.
Another way of putting this is that through my poetry I want to, in whatever limited way I am able, bring the “huge issues,” the “eternal questions,” if you will, to a level where we ground dwellers might at least begin to make sense of them. Perhaps it is the apex of hubris, but in my poetry I strive to tether the bright immensities – G-d, the Universe, Time, the Spiritual Realm – to the “lesser” creation here below.
I further hope through my poetic ramblings, to cast the light of wonder on the seemingly simple things: How often a leaf or some passage of bird song, or a child’s smile is about far more than just what they by their being present. Or maybe those things are only about themselves. But if that is the case, I know at least I need to be reminded of the beauty and wonder in yes, the simple elements of life.
If I could be allowed to encapsulate my purpose in a single thesis statement, my poetry is about making the complex simple and the simple... not necessarily complex but full of wonderment.
And now the bad part: I know that most of the time I fail miserably. Sometimes what I create has been called beautiful, but I am fully aware of its shortcomings. Like Isaiah and St. Paul, I know only too well that my “righteousness” is worth about as much as a heap of filthy rags. And therein lies the reason for all the striving – the grappling with words and forms and meters. But then again, maybe that’s not all bad – maybe we humans are not quite prepared for perfection in this life, neither paradise nor nirvana. Maybe that is why we keep striving – why there are so many “crappy” love poems, so many poems about the universe, or time, or a single blade of grass. Maybe that’s why there are so many pictures of the same landscape, so many novels and plays with essentially the same plot, so many schools of thought, divergent ideals, religions, and political parties. If ever it – whatever IT is, could be done to perfection, why would the rest of us even try? And yet again, maybe it isn’t about perfection at all, but simply about some unique perspective. Maybe there can be several disparate perfections and an infinite number of roads to all of them. Maybe.
So as to this issue of the simple versus the “high falutin” – well, maybe that too is really a matter of path. There are times when I will confess that ordinary words can’t quite say what I want them to say. Maybe it’s the fault of the words, maybe the fault of my mind or most likely the fault of my skills or lack thereof, but just the same, the big, fancy five-dollar words are still a tool: There are times and places where azure is so much more satisfying a color than blue, and good old mother earth really is a fragile island hurtling through the vast expanse of interstellar space. These are the times and places where the exact shade of meaning is, or at least should be, captured by not just what one says, but how one says it. And yes, the obverse is imbued with just as much veracity – or the other side is just as true… There are the times and places when what must be said is best said without adornment, and any verbal accoutrement would detract from the truth and the beauty of what is being conveyed.
Is it “real” poetry if it contains no big words? Is it real if it DOES contain big words? If we can agree that it IS poetry, is it great poetry? Who are we, poets though some or all of us may be, to call the shot? Is one individual’s simplicity another’s complexity? Indeed, can a virgin write passionate love sonnets? Can an atheist write about G-d? Can one write a profoundly pained poem about the lack of one’s morning coffee? Can one write a farce based on some national tragedy? Why? Why not? Should we throw our lot in with Ezra Pound who stated as if it were an inalienable truth, “There are no long poems.”?
Sometimes a good altercation can be balm for a community. Especially when it ends with no one really getting hurt. But at least on this topic, once the arguing is done, I’ll bet anyone a good bottle of rye that nothing will be resolved. For me, and that’s the operative part… for me at this juncture, and for you too if you happen to agree, but if not that’s okay too… For me, poetry is an infinite universe. And in an infinite universe there are after all, infinite possibilities: In this universe we embrace, there are no end to the possibilities for self-expression. Perhaps no one can appreciate or even approve of all of them, but we are best served when we nonetheless acknowledge and even revel in their existence.