Dave
I think you took my rather banal jocularity on the problems of running a
website, and made a very personal but interesting observation on the
negative forces that can be invoked in being a poet.
"I don't know what it is I'm dealing with, and it seems to be coming
from all sides, and the worst thing one can do in such a situation is to
attract attention to oneself"
There has been recent discussion on the list which has involved poetry
as prayer (a profound and rewarding comparison). There is a fascinating
activity occurring in association with the list which involves poetry as
a collaborative open-ended game (also a profound and rewarding
comparison).
Your description of the poem coming from the I Ching and the state its
writing has produced in you, I would personally relate to another way of
attempting to describe poetry - as a more dangerous game in which the
self is risked in the attempt. I think the comparisons here, which
interest me greatly at present, are of poetry as an absurd & excessive
self-projection (like magic - possibly the only people more self-
obsessed & ridiculous than poets are [would-be?] dabblers in magic) and
leading despite all reason to a kind of power - and also of poetry as an
actual possession by language & otherness, by something needing voicing
which is not a component of the self and is potentially disruptive and
dangerous. I find "paranoia" (apart from being an arguably very rational
response to life in early 2004) alarmingly close to poetry.
Websites are rational but too bloody complicated. One can't really have
anything but trivial emotions over them.
Poetry is at times pain and fear and trembling. (And ... also)
best wishes
Peter Philpott
|