Self-pity would seem an essential element in self-expression.
(Unfortunately) Good that we not make use of this bountiful source. High
spirited self-pity.
Rather to draw upon the other self, as you point out. That other self,
perhaps conjured up from out of dusty imagination.
The distance required quite naturally, treating the poem as object.
Something one makes (rather that a puff of smoke, a portion of one's
soul--the poem escaped, trickled up from the brain, down the arm and out the
pen) would seem to be a critical factor in determining objectivity.
One successfully makes changes in poems that one regards as unfinished. As
each of us is unfinished. When one regards the poem as part of one's self, a
portion of one's soul.
We respect perhaps too much what we write. At least in the initial stages.
When do words scribbled down migrate from spirit to poem? When does the poem
rise and walk and assume its place in the world?
Is self-pity a ritual of incantation? Are we casting spells on ourselves
when we write inwardly of the inner self? The answer perhaps might determine
our success as poets.
***
The Poet Make The Morning Light Break
Comes the downpour ---
Old words make new lore.
Words decide a poet's fate,
what the pen was born to write
has passed before.
The poet cannot wake
from the Dream; the poet make
the morning light break.
Beautiful, loud inside all words
the blessed bells of Jerusalem ring ---
and from tall sentences dark with night
spring Canterbury's glorious light.
Ernest Slyman
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