My name is Ernest Slyman. I was born in the UK. Grew up in the United States
of America. My verse is published for over three decades in many literary
quarterlies, college textbooks.
If I might be permitted a voice, I would state my distress over the death of
language. I recognize the perpetual identity crisis of language and the
literary arts. Regard much of the movement of L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E idioms toward
post-modern poetry as spirituality. The poem defined as Pentecostal revival,
a place to sing and lift one's mood.
Redeem the spirit. Speak in tongues. Roll in the aisle with a mystic look on
one's face. The Holy Ghost the cause of no small commotion. Set loose by the
suppressed elements of the psyche which inhibit intellectual growth. (I
suspect what need be freed from most be lethargy and loud hymn singing.)
I for one prefer the silence of isolation. Most of the poetry I read is
confined to Palgrav's Golden Treasury. It's rather quiet in this book and
the only season that comes along is the eternal season of poetry.
My largest complaint about much of post-modern poetry is that it reduces
literature to personal journalism or spiritualism.
I frown on inspiration. Inspiration falls short of poetry. I seek the
literary life not to be a spirit, or obtain some enlightened window on the
world.
Though I recognize the spiritual elements of the literary life.
***
Striking The Words
(for Basil Bunting)
"Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write."
--- Basil Bunting
With chisel in hand, I strike the stone
and make of words my flesh and bone ---
two children born from my last sentence.
And once out of a fresh-cut sentence flew
a flock of black birds, an old shoe,
three monkeys chasing a cockatoo.
Wish I could make of words
a cottage in the country with a white picket fence.
Ernest Slyman
HomePage
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