The first time I heard the death of poetry announced was in graduate school at UNC Charlotte. A professor whose knowledge of languages I greatly admired told me poetry had become irrelevant.
Even then, however, very early in my development as a poet, nothing else spoke to me the way poetry did. And when I attended either of my two weekly critique groups, the other dozen or so young writers generating new work and sharpening what they had already written seemed as passionate about poetry as I was. And when I went to any of the three monthly readings I regularly attended, the other 50 or 60 audience members there seemed as moved by what they heard as I was. And when I went to my first meeting of the NC Poetry Society that year, the fact that 200 others had traveled from across the state to be there cemented in my mind just how wrong this learned professor had to be.
I was never quite certain what he had hoped to accomplish by telling me that poetry was dead (maybe he wanted me to focus more on academic writing), but I suspect the effect it had was the opposite of what he had in mind. Rather than dissuading me, it motivated me such that writing poetry became for me an act of stubbornness, of rebellion, of rebuttal, and therefore, even more important. And it didn’t take me long to realize that poetry has always had this quality of resistance about it, and that in my own writing, poems had frequently begun as refutations of what I had seen or heard: a stepfather’s justification of child abuse; judgmental statements from church leaders or politicians; racist comments; sexist comments; homophobic comments; observations that just seemed wrong.
Even today, many of my poems begin out of disagreement. Yes, some of those are politically oriented, joining the tradition of poetry as resistance to abuses of power and social wrongdoing, but the contrariness of poetry is not limited to politics. As the two recent poems of mine included here demonstrate, responding to something you think is wrong, whether it’s a big deal or just an interesting observation, is frequently a good place to start a poem.
The Incomprehensible Allness of All There Is
As soon as I say it,
I hear my daughter say,
But is it really though?
Just the way she likes to say
that something just said
might be, could be, possibly
contravened.
And isn’t that what Snyder means –
the incomprehensible allness of all there is —
The riprap of things,
cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
lost ponies with
ants and pebbles,
thousand-eyed dragonflies
things as brief as mayflies.
I could go on and on
and think perhaps I should.
Instead, we see ourselves as little gods,
creating by dividing, deciding
where one thing stops, the next
begins, separating, sorting,
mine from yours, this from that,
right from wrong, forced to choose,
assuming the need to judge, believing
our lives depend upon such diminishment.
But is the allness really
incomprehensible?
Or is trying to comprehend it
just inconvenient?
Perceived impediment?
Clutter? Mindswamp?
I know, Choose your battles;
Prioritize.
But if we could drop these filters,
these screens, maybe
we could see more, do more.
I know, Surely that way madness lies.
But does it really though?
And what a divine madness
that could maybe, possibly be.
Wouldn’t you rather die
still having fun than keep on living
with so much just left un-
done.
On the Sometimes Unbelievable Truth of Wild Romance
It seems just a romantic image,
a submission to fantasy,
but it’s truer than most think,
trunk grasping tail,
marching single file
through miles of arid wasteland
in search of food, water,
sustenance of shade.
And so it often is.
Geese flying in V’s,
otters holding hands
while floating as a raft,
possums riding their mother’s back.
Regardless how jaded we become,
it’s important to remember
that just because something seems
sweet doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
