Some Feeling for a Form

The formal grounds for how one writes are one thing, the emotional grounds another. To write about concrete formalism using technical, hierarchical terminology – to speak in building blocks – negates the facts and effect of the experience that put those blocks in motion. It would be like constructing the shell of a train, pistons and all, but neglecting to provide a boiler. I have come far enough to say that I write in the block form to work with and against form. That it provides me with a non-enculturated structure with which I can do as I please. But there is more to say, more that means more than speaking of the “influence” of double-acrostics, etc. What means more is what feelings drive the choices or choice seeking as a poet, and to seek the cause of those feelings. Then I will have built something like a functional platform for understanding my own work.

I write in the block form for the same reason any poet writes in the form they write in – it brings me alive. The block form forces decisions for word choice and arrangement. It challenges me. What makes me write poetry is that the effect of a block form poem is the effect I want to see in my poetry. That effect is at the edges of the lines, at the beginnings and ends, in a constant flux between terminal endings and elision. A secondary battle is in use of punctuation versus use of line endings, strophe endings, and word phrasing as punctuation either instead of punctuation marks, or with punctuation marks.

This sounds technical, but the point I want to lead to is how the block form poems are realized at their boundaries, at the edges of the poem. Once I realized this condition of the poems, I realized that I am drawn to work – writing, painting, music – that exists at various boundaries or edges of experience. I myself, through nature or course of habit, tend to live at the edge of my life, on balance, losing balance, recapturing it. Testing those boundaries, again and again.

An attitude, a philosophy, a personality, informs a choice of form. This cannot be news. But it is news to me to make this connection which explains why I developed this form to suit my personality. I had thought I would have more to say on this topic, but I believe I have said all I need to. Certainly, the reader does not need a list of the “edgy” works I am drawn to, nor proof of my own edgy personality. I can point your way to any number of friends who will attest to that! The point of this writing is to explain an idea (the emotional behind the form choice) as it applies to Concrete Formalism. There is more to be said I believe on why authors are so willing to ascribe influence while shy to name motive. I will address that topic another time.

Something into night

It is remarkable how little thought is in a book. The evidence of thought, yes, but thought itself is absent. I say this having recently finished a few so-called great books which left me thought-bereft. I see from this point that reading is not thinking, if by thinking we hope for fresh thought. Looking back, I recall being prompted by books, but those prompts were more properly self-contained goads occasioned by the achievement of the books themselves. The promptings were mine, not the books’.

As I read now I find myself having read, not having thoughts. As I finish a book, I reach for another book. I do not reach for the pen or computer. My lovely laptop computer, buffeted by cigarette smoke and the strains of Motorhead, I am told, as I write from a favorite bar, having dislocated myself from any context that might prevent me from saying what I think instead of what I hope from myself.

For the guilt is mine in asking books to do my work for me. And it is my fault in seeking to explain myself and my poetry, instead of writing, and allowing the writing to explain itself. I am going to suggest an analogy here to Apollinaire, who it seems to me accomplished a great deal without having explained a damn thing. And now I will leave the suggestion behind as I move on. Bon chance, analogy.

I cannot explain my writing as if to fill an empty or emptying cup. I cannot simply draw lines and call it art. Specifically, I have granted myself a label – Concrete Formalist poet- and having done so, I have not written a poem. I have written well of concrete formalism, but now find I have nothing to say that would add to the subject or fill in the gaps, or sustain the sentiments of explanation and support.

What do I say, now, buffeting my lovely laptop with cigarette smoke. I say I write in form not to justify form, but to fuck with form. I created a structure divorced from obvious cultural models which I can erect and challenge by turns. What is it to experiment – to think – but to redesign, abolish, and create. Every move can be explained, but the moves in themselves need no explanation, except to say: here is thought. To do as I do is to think, not to remember what I did. A book is the memory of thought.

But what is a bar? Well, I can say this is a lovely bar. Dark and smoky, where the bartenders put on the music, which tends toward the loud, profane, and authentic sort of rock that would seem divorced from thoughts of books. Should I write about that? No, but I can write in it.

Where I am is hell, there is no other, writes Robert Lowell in Skunk Hour – and where I am is heaven, if by heaven we mean thought in life and not as difference from non-thought. If by thinking you retreat you will build where you come to rest, if you rest, if you escape. But I wonder who escapes, or do we customarily choose to believe that life is thought in the truth of obligations, and life is hell in the fact of failure. Do we embrace thought as surely we believe we do, or do we embrace death, which is the absence of thought in all its forms.

If by thinking you advance – well, how will you know, except that you continue to run as one uncaught. The dead cannot think or extol thought. They extol books. Their thoughts are patterns aligned with patterns derived from books sponsored by authors who may have had thoughts. It is impossible to say what is life and death without having lived and died and lived to tell.

At this moment, thought is alive. It needs no further explanation. What will you wait for, to live again. To think.

My challenge then – to return the focus directly to myself – is to think alive in poetry and in writing about my poetry. Happily, I cannot be tempted to write in any other way, as I do not now read theory and do not make my living reading or teaching books. Either I think and write or I do nothing. I play solitaire. I attend to my obligations and I play solitaire, waiting, wondering what the fuck is wrong with me.

Now, having written all this, you might think I suppose I have hit upon a Formula for Life. But no, I will rest at some point and be overtaken, then run again. Having reached one point of understanding there is no law that demands I must by necessity continue in understanding. It takes a great deal of energy to reach an understanding. It is easier, much easier, to live in the words of others and mirror or parallel the understandings achieved by others. Either is the same thing, to mirror or parallel is to react in relation to the dead. There is no thought in an eclipse.
But I have found, much to my dismay and disgust, that others’ understandings, while prompting in me a desire to do the same, have in themselves provided no real support to explain my writings to myself or others. And explaining is something I must do as there is no one else to explain what I do. And, given the fundamental principle that art matters, what I do matters, as the poems are good poems and I am their only representative.

The form of explanation should be (now I’m guessing) suggestive rather than argumentative. Again, I do not want to contend with the dead on our shelves or the dead that read books and report on them to the near dead who study them. One problem of course is that suggestions imply openness or a seeking for response (which is fine) whereas I receive few if any responses to my suggestions. I can suggest, but I cannot rely on response. I cannot force the horse of response to the trough of suggestiveness. I cannot pick the grape of suggestiveness and hope for the wine of response. Or, I can hope – or do more than that: I can have …faith? But I cannot rely on the proof of response.

Faith tied, however, to human feelings, is a contract this poet is not entirely comfortable with. This is a war of words though and I must use what arms suggest themselves and are available. First rule is: what are my models. Well, my own experience (as I allude to above) is one where I imagined promptings by books that were more properly my own. So, I can say I have faith in my suggestions but do not delude myself. A reader’s response is their own prompting from within, whatever the name on whatever the book that occasioned that prompting.

So, we are clear on that point, yes? Whatever promptings you, the reader, might experience – and which I am dedicated to provide in my poetry and explanations of my poetry – are your own. These words are an arrangement in what we share and obtain in what we share. The analogy is in music, where the song claims for itself nothing new in the notes assembled to the purpose of song-making.

Let me return briefly to the books I have been reading.

The books are largely a return to books I read long ago. This effort was based on the desire to capture the promptings that sponsored my poetry. I can see that this was a failed effort. I have lived truthfully these years: written, married, worked, had a child, read, written, loved and been loved. All this is to the purpose of thought in the present, which cannot be recaptured by visiting the past. How odd, and encouraging, that I did not miss anything of importance in what I read when I was 22 years old, but took the promptings fully and acted upon them then, and now find nothing new in what I read, either of what I read when I was 22, or in what I read at 49. Without knowing it, all this life and this work has been all my own and is not supportable by others’ words. Where I am is, by occasion, hell – in that I am alone in my thoughts, and heaven, in that I believe in my thoughts. I cannot be undeceived, except by some authority that would disallow or contextualize thought. I neatly avoided a University life, preserving myself from contextualization, and I believe in God, who I trust disallows nothing that is proper to any effort to negotiate this narrow, human space. Safe in God, I am secure in myself – for the moment! There is a lot of work to do before I realize and can see and point to any sort of redeeming evidence aside from these suggestions and explanations, however complete they are in themselves.

Thank you for reading.

Check

I don't expect to float any ideas today but I do need to reassemble my thoughts, and so something might happen.

I favor FaceBook over MySpace, clearly. I have a passel of friends through FaceBook, who I am interested in and who have included themselves in the Concrete Formalist Poetry group. That group is certainly my focal point. I have put aside cycling (racing) and other distractions and compensations. I am excited for whatever developments might occur. I have not felt this engaged and hopeful in many years.

The question I ask myself at this point is whether to cut things loose (such as cycling, MySpace) or simply let them sit unattended. My tendency is to cut things loose that do not pertain to a central project, but that habit has cost me in some ways. In this instance, I can't be sure I won't want to race and I can't be sure I won't revisit MySpace.

Here's a thought: I can cut away habits and things, but not people. So for instance I can eliminate racing but stay with my team; I can reformat MySpace to be a placeholder, a referrant to this blog or FaceBook. Rather than eliminate, I can reorganize.

As to my poetry, I am closer to writng than I was a week ago. I feel like the Concrete Formalist Poetry needs a little more attention to bring it to a point where it prompts choices for my manuscripts, which in turn would provide impetus to write. Likely. Reading and reviewing books in FaceBook is an important activity to, as I reinvigorate my mind and lay down some history for myself.

Writing this has helped, at least to reassure me I am not missing anything. Back to the pulse.

Keeping an Eye On - from MySpace

I must say, this business of reading and thinking and writing is risky, and filled with potential for missteps. Just this morning I found myself in some difficulty, thinking about posting on the subject of Barthes' Mythologies, then choosing not to do so because it would be perceived as arrogant to purportedly "review" a half-century old influential book. Now, how did I let myself get into a position of being concerned about how I am perceived on MySpace, FaceBook, or in my blogs? Well, perhaps it is because I am happy here, and fear offending someone, or losing "friends," etc. More background: I thought last night of creating a Group in FaceBook, along the lines of, "Iowa Writers' Workshop Grads are Super-Compensatory, Ego-Driven Nut Jobs - I should Know, because I am One." And then I thought to hold back, fearing I would offend someone. At the same time, I was resolved to invite as friends anyone who joined the MySpace Group I formed, Working Poets. There are certainly some interesting and divergent people who have joined that Group. But this morning, I hesitated posting those invitations. To crown my morning of doubt, I joined the Group National Poetry Foundation. Now what the hell am I doing joining the National Poetry Foundation, you ask? Well, others I know have joined it, and it does appear..."interesting."

There's that word again: "interesting." I should know better. Where something appears "interesting" and naught else, I should run like the wind.

The end result of all these mystifications and circumlocutions is I was sitting here feeling quite down, having talked myself out of doing everything I wanted to do, playing solitaire, when I should have been happily pecking away at the keyboard - for what had happened since my happiness of yesterday, except that I had second-guessed myself? Maybe the problem started with joining the Barack Obama fan club. I mean to suggest that I need to stay on top of job number one: the poetry, Concrete Formalism, and all that jazz.

So let me get to it: the Group creation, the invitations, and thinking about what positively matters to me, rather then worrying about what might matter to someone else.

Not Reading for Thought - from MySpace

I have found a line of thought. When the thoughts coalesce, I write a poem, or a blog entry here, or on one of the Groups to which I belong in MySpace or FaceBook. I find that this line of thought is not informed by reading, except to the extent that reading is pleasant and necessary to me, as is cycling, work, walks around the neighborhood, etc. I have never felt as close to my work as now that I have put reading in perspective. And poetry. Poetry, which, if I do not write it, it will not be written.

What is my line of thought? My background, as I express it today, is that my point of view is as the author of a collection of poems of a characeristic form and content. I then turn my attention to the world around me, seeking to place myself and my poetry in that world. My line of thought then is this: I am determining as I write and as I chose how to interact with what I see in the world, therefore, my responsibility is to reveal those determinations. So, I try and make audible my will and my perspective. So, you can see now why it is important that I place reading in perspective, as I write from will, from desire. Losing that focus, and it is tenuous, I lose everything. I cannot merely think and call it living, or writing, for that matter.