Thoughts on Poetry

I always try to write during moments of inspiration. And this is one. Claremont Graduate University recently hosted its 20^th annual Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards ceremony. The day before the ceremony, there were three poetry panels, featuring previous Tufts winners as well as the two current winners. Though the panelists all threaded wonderful, poignant words of wisdom through their dialogue with one another and the audience, there are a few phrases and concepts that I hope stay with me always, and so I share it here in case they might speak to you as well.

The first is that writing poetry is not necessarily a thing that comes from talent; rather, according to our Tufts poets, it is a craft that, like any other skill, must be cultivated. As an aspiring writer, this idea brings me much hope. Their promise is this: if I can just make the time to sit my butt down to study poetry and write, I might be able to produce something of value… or at least something not terrible. But, in order to counterbalance any unrealistic fantasy I might possess about becoming a poet someday, I immediately recall the words of my dearly beloved John Keats, who said, “If Poetry comes not as naturally as Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.” With that, my Tufts-induced illusions of becoming a poet are again dashed. Is it obvious why I am inclined to trust the words of Keats more than those of the others? The truth is, I need to stop allowing Keats’ words to prevent me from writing. Poetry, plain and simple, does not come as naturally to me as leaves to a tree. But I won't let that stop me. I also need to stop letting my fear—that my academic, scholarly voice is sucking the life out of my creative one—keep me from writing. My promise to myself is that I will devote a large amount of summer break time to writing. I will work to cultivate my craft because I don’t want to think the same thing of myself as I think of Keats, where I mourn all the things I might have produced, if only.

The second comes from Katherine Larson, the 2012 Kate Tufts Discovery Award Winner. She said that she is more engaged with the world when she is writing. This concept is exceptionally attractive to me because I believe myself to be someone who strives to actively, intentionally participate in life and the world. Larson’s words are yet another motivator to get me writing creatively again. On that note, Timothy Donnelly, the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Winner, said that there are two things he hates: laziness and blarney-ness. When he said this, my inner voice cried out a resounding “YES!” I hate indolence and bull-shit talk, too! But what he was really getting at is the importance of living a meaningful life, and how this way of being impacts the way he sees the world and, therefore, the way he writes. Larson’s comment is the yin to Donnelly’s yang. The two concepts work together: if one strives to live a meaningful life, one produces good poetry; if one writes poetry, one engages more fully with the world, thus creating a more meaningful life. I will work to cultivate my craft because I care deeply about living a meaningful existence.

The third is to take advantage of the valuable influence of great writers. All of the Tufts poets mentioned their love affair with reading, and, when asked about their education, they discussed it more in terms of their independent reading and less in regard to their formal university education. When I was writing my Master’s thesis, I wrote out on enormous poster paper the three Elizabeth Bishop poems I was studying. There was something magical about seeing the poems hanging in my hallway everyday. I noticed something new each time I walked by—the placement of a colon, the rhyme of the last two lines, the stanza breaks, the unique word choices. Each thing came to symbolize something more. The poems were speaking to me because I gave them a permanent presence in my everyday life. I will write out again a handful of the best poems I know and hang them on my walls. I will work to cultivate my craft because I have the help of the masters at my disposal. I trust that they will speak to me; I trust in their power.

The overall, larger impact of this experience and this inspiration is that I love having experiences in my life that reaffirm my path. I know it sounds super cliché and cheesy, but it is how I feel. Occasionally, I question whether or not I am moving in the right direction. And sometimes, when I really doubt my efforts, I look for some kind of reassurance. The Tufts poets, with perfect timing, gave me the nudge I needed, assuring me to keep going, assuring me of my path.

I have to emphatically say that I fell in love with Katherine Larson’s and Timothy Donnelly’s poetry. Larson’s Radial Symmetry has already made its way to my bookshelves, and Donnelly’s Cloud Corporation is en route to my house as I type.

And so I leave you with a bit of poetry from Larson. This is my favorite of her poems:

Solarium

The pomegranates are blurs of rouge

in the sky’s tarnished mirror.

The city, bleary with heat. Each day the eyes

of my cat assemble a more precocious gold.

We press our blackened flesh against a sky so bright. I hold

her in my arms at the fading windows.

We gaze together at nothing in particular,

down an avenue that leans so far her tawny eyes

Gutter out. In my laboratory, immortal cancer cells

divide and divide. The pomegranates

Are almost ripe. Some splintered open the way

all things fragment—into something fundamental.

Either everything’s sublime or nothing at all.

This is my favorite line from Larson’s poem “Love at Thirty-Two Degrees”:

Science—

beyond pheromones, hormones, aesthetics of bone,

every time I make love for love’s sake alone,

I betray you.