I like the "brooding tower" poem posted by Yiyan Wang.
I was struck by remarks of Czeslaw Milosz, someone hardly unfamiliar with
suffering. If I understand him correctly, he distrusts the "confessional"
mode in poetry. He seems to regard the subject matter as more properly
psychiatric.
He also suggests there is almost a taboo against celebrations of existence
in much modern poetry.
These are half-remembered generalisations but I was certainly drawn to the
poetry of Milosz by its broad range, a range that includes celebration.
Bernard Lane
PS I've enjoyed the saintly thread very much.
>From: Yiyan Wang <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Artists In Extremis--Ya gotta suffer?
>Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 16:21:13 +1000
>
>Hi, everyone,
>
>I have joined the list for a while but haven't introduced myself. I enjoy
>reading poems more than writing them at the moment.
>
>The discussion about suffering interests me and I'd like to ask a couple of
>questions.
>Question 1 -There will always be degrees of suffering. However, to the
>person
>who suffers, from whatever misfortune or the lack of it, be the unrequited
>love, the death of loved ones, poverty, isolation ..., the suffering is
>real
>and the misery/melancholy is tangible. So, can we say it is not the
>greatest
>of suffering that produces a great poet/writer but one's ability to observe
>and articulate that experience? If so, can we say that literary writing in
>a
>way celebrates suffering, however trivial sometimes it can be (to other
>people)?
>
>Question 2 - do people/poets/writers usually connect suffering with
>melancholy? Is melancholy different from sorrow? if so, how?
>
>I'll quote a Chinese poet here who wrote on the subject of suffering or
>melancholy, please forgive my rough translation of his great poem:
>
>Xin Qijin [Hsin Chi-chi] (1140-1207)
>
>The Autumn is Beautiful
>
>As a lad I had no idea what meant sorrow
>but loved going up the top of the veiwing tower to brood, oh, how I loved
>going up the tower
>in my desparate need for melancholy when composing another verse.
>
>Now that of suffering I have tasted my fill,
>but hesitate on the verge of utterance of my sorrow, oh, how I hesitate
>and end up saying the autumn is beautiful.
>
>Yiyan Wang
>
>
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