YAWB – Yet Another Writing Blog
Just another Poetry site
I’ve been reading a lot of great books lately… Some, I’ve read through and am going back to spend more time with, and some are new for me. As I work through them, I’m posting a lot of quotes up here on the blog, and not really offering a whole lot of analysis to go along. I’m trying to get volume taken care of, I suppose.
Continue reading “A Few Thoughts on Poetry, Reading, and Writing”
The Friend, Does a drop
stay still in the Ocean?
Move with the Entirety,
and with the tiniest particular.
Be the moisture in an oyster
that helps to form one pearl.
– “1022” (14-19), Like This
***
When I press my hand to my chest,
it is Your Chest.
And now You’re scratching my head!
Sometimes you put me in the herd
with Your other camels.
– “543” (1-5), Like This
One day when the planet was idly
pressing stegosaurs in her scrapbook
she threw out a whole plateau
of souvenirs…
…
you get distracted, you put down that scribbled
fossilized note about Martian microbes
and once you set a tectonic plate on top of it,
you may never find it again…
– “Mount Clutter”, (1-4, 8-11)
***
She drifted along his side and touched his face,
then felt the wind lift her arms,
wind under her hair, in her mouth.
“Dear love,” said her mouths
that were also her hands and hair
shaken out by the wind.
She bowed, he bowed,
they began forming rings for each other.
– “Turn Us into Trees”, (33-40)
Poetry is not just about language, though language is its medium. Poetry’s true subject is the spirit, the divine, the sacred, the ineffable. If you prefer God, use that word. It’s just a word, though one that’s loaded with baggage. And it makes poetry sound loftier than it is, since by God and the sacred I mean everything, the “what is” of life. [and from the previous paragraph] If you believe there is nothing beyond the body, you probably still have a sense of what I’m talking about. (100)
and
All poems are seductions. When you fall under the spell of a poem, it’s an infatuation that can become a love affair. A poem wants you to feel like this; it doesn’t feel complete unless it makes a personal connection. (115)
– Ordinary Genius, 2009
… Wise men tried to convince me otherwise. They explained that men were made in the image of God. We must live godly lives. God never had orgasms. Neither should I. … (16)
– from “The Quest”, The Book of Orgasms, Bloodaxe edition, 2003.
Summed up, our position at the moment is that the poet must get rid of the hieratic in everything that concerns him and must move constantly in the direction of the credible. He must create his unreal out of what is real.
If we consider the nature of our experience when we are in agreement with reality, we find, for one thing, that we cease to be metaphysicians. (58)
– Necessary Angels, 1942
The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence. The philosopher thinks of the world as enormous pastiche or, as he puts it, the world is as the percipient… But the poet says that, whatever it may be, la vie est plus belle que les idées. (56)
– Necessary Angels, 1942
Maybe you’re one of those people who writes poems, but rarely reads them. Let me put this as delicately as I can: If you don’t read, your writing is going to suck… If you just want to be a poet the way some people want to be rock stars without actually learning the guitar, playing scales, and practicing–then you are free to fantasize.
– Ordinary Genius, 2009
It is hard, if not impossible, to describe things objectively. And objective description isn’t the task of poets. We aren’t surveyors, measuring the terrain and reporting numbers. We’re looking for the essence of the land.
– Ordinary Genius, 2009
Poems aren’t products, anyway. Poems are what you make when you experience life in a certain way. Alive to yourself in the world, observant of inner and outer reality, and connected to language.
– Ordinary Genius, 2009