Our Species' Treasure: A Dialogue On The Utility Of Poetry In Academia And Society

Ralph,

It wasn’t too long ago you suggested I read Eliot’s Four Quartets. I managed to make it through the first part of the first quartet. I will only say that I have no clue what the hell he is talking about except for the bit about time being unredeemable, that part makes sense but the rest is just plain nonsense to me. It takes a learned person to read and understand such things and I am far from that. My own writing comes straight from my heart and has very little to do with my head except that it is in my head where I war with words to make the emotion of the poem fit. All these classic writers are great and all but truly, I understand very little of what they are saying unless it strikes me as something emotional for that is the element of a poem, which to me, is the most facilitating, and which has the greatest effect upon me. Academics scare me because even if they are lying thru their teeth, who am I to challenge it when I have no clue what is taking place beyond the surface. I would go so far as to say that it is for this reason that poetry is kept barely alive…it seems a good old boys club that will not suffer any grandeur other than the prescribed methods that are known only to its members. Perhaps when I am educated a bit more I will at least be able to regurgitate what I have learned, listen to the arguments and then form an opinion of my own.

Best,
Nick


8/19/11

Nick,

Famous poets-not necessarily all great--often figure in my dreams, mostly wish-fulfillment dreams. Once I saw myself as Milosz’ butler whom his old wife came to like so much that the couple would actually insist on having me sit down with them for dinner. I’ve found myself with Eliot numerous times--in my dreams, of course. He and I knelt in the quiet of a 17th century chapel once and said the rosary together--all fifteen mysteries. In another he appeared to me in the form of a Serbian maid (she had an unusually elongated face) who was trying to make a pass at me in a crowded market place and hard as I tried I couldn’t seem to shake her off until her mother found her and reamed her out for not helping cart the full basket of potatoes back into storage.

This is to merely say that although I’m an academic, I’m not merely cerebral and I certainly hope I don’t lie through my teeth as often as you seem to think academics do. I obviously have a dream life, intimately connected with the body, naturally. And I do often write from the heart, as you say you do, although I wonder if it can ever be done without at the same time the mind being engaged in the effort in some mysterious way. Indeed, one can break into a sob in the presence of something sad and sorrowful. But that’s not exactly a poem.

You just read the first movement of the five-part "Burnt Norton" (all of the quartets are symmetrical in this regard.) And it’s not an easy movement to get into because it IS so intellectual, at least the very beginning, and requires one to really ponder some of the metaphysical “assertions” the poet makes in the process of getting his long intellectual/spiritual/mystical reflection underway. I suggest you take it slowly. And try not to leave your heart behind.

Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality. (ll 40 44)

Is the heart engaged? Mine is!

I also suggest you read some good commentary on this long poem which is laced with place names and historical allusions that you must know in order to grasp the hidden geography and landscape of the poem. Helen Gardner’s book would be a good place to start.

Nick, I’m confident that your patience will pay off. You don’t have to like Eliot’s politics or personality (many don’t!) to recognize and appreciate his magnificent achievement in Four Quartets, a poem that comes very late in his life after he’d moved through near insanity, his wife’s and his own and, famously, of the early part of the 20th century, entre le guerre, between the wars.

While you’re at it, I’d also recommend you read Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet. This would be great preparation for you not only for the Creative Writing program you hope to enter but also for life. There are perceptions and insights in the Letters that will, I’m sure, help form an indispensable foundation for your writing life.

Ralph


8/19/11

Ralph,
I did not mean to suggest that academics are heartless liars, it is just that to me it seems they armor those hearts with intellectual scale. Scale that moves and shimmers and offers glimpses of people, places, and ideas,, that most definitely engage us as readers; as for the lying bit, I meant that I am ill prepared to comment on something as deep as Elliot and so if a teacher’s analysis of a poem was something other than it should be, even as a test to his or her students, that I might not catch it. I think poetry should be our treasure as a species and not something that only the learned can cultivate. Young minds are thirsty these days and I think it would be spectacular to give them the tools to make poetry thrive all across the globe and watch them run with it.

I agree that raw emotion does not a poem make. Rather, I feel that a poem should carefully sculpt an emotion…or at least that is how I try to write. For me the whole process is cathartic, it really is my therapy.

Best,
Nicholas


8/21/11

Nick, before I comment on your latest letter, let me share with you my friend Mahriah Blackwolf’s reaction to your first letter in which you express your frustration with Eliot’s Four Quartets.

Mahriah, a dear friend of mine who lives in California, a poet and song writer, is the author of the lyric “Touch the Hand of Love.” Please click (the video clip below) for the great Blossom Dearie’s version, and (below right) for the rendition of the same lyric by one of the much-loved sopranos of our time, Renee Fleming, accompanied by possibly the greatest cellist of the last few decades, Yo-Yo Ma.

 
I shared our brief exchange about Four Quartets with Mahriah. She just called to say that she resonated completely with what you said about your difficulties with Eliot’s poem. “I couldn’t agree with Nick more,” she said. She said that she’d felt stupid reading Eliot’s great poem and not grasping most of it, and she was consoled to know that it was not solely her problem but that there were others who also felt the poem was too obscure, cerebral and, possibly, ultimately not very helpful. Your honesty and courage in saying what you felt moved her deeply. I wanted you to know this, that our brief exchange has touched someone far away, and conversations like ours have the ability to bring people together, deepen culture and our understanding of ourselves.
 

 In your response to me, you say, “I think poetry should be our treasure as a species and not something that only the learned can cultivate. Young minds are thirsty these days and I think it would be spectacular to give them the tools to make poetry thrive all across the globe and watch them run with it.” You’re absolutely right, Nick. Poetry should be a precious shared experience, and not the private possession of a few ancient and isolated geeks!

You go on to say, “I agree that raw emotion does not a poem make. Rather, I feel that a poem should carefully sculpt an emotion…or at least that is how I try to write. For me the whole process is cathartic, it really is my therapy.”

I can think of so many of my friends who would agree with you wholeheartedly about what you identify as the healing effect of the poetic process. I know Mahriah would. (I hope you listened to her utterly heart-centered song and felt the healing that so many report when they hear it.) As you know, in our group at Curley’s, I’ve been known, while affirming our need and responsibility to be completely expressive of our sentiments and feelings, to come down a bit hard on sentimentality. I guess my belief is that in order to achieve the catharsis that you mention and which you achieve through the attentiveness you bring to the shaping of your emotions, one must be open to the complexity of experience, make sure that one is not merely and gratuitously wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve but find the words that truly delve into the heart of the matter. This is not easy to achieve. It takes “careful sculpting,” as you say.

Thanks for sharing your perceptions with me. Maybe our exchange will widen into a conversation other poets join in and together we’ll move towards claiming poetry, honest and complex, as our common legacy that offers a promise of freedom.

Ralph



What are your views on the issues raised by Nick and Ralph? Post your comments below and join the discussion!

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About the participants:
Recently accepted into Fairfield University's MFA in Creative Writing program, Nick Miele is a technical analyst for Aircastle, LLC, a Stamford, CT-based firm that leases and sells commercial jets to air carriers worldwide.

Facilitator of PoemAlley's weekly gatherings at Curley's, Ralph Nazareth teaches English at Nassau Community College on Long Island, where he also leads PeaceWork, a peace/social justice group. In addition, Ralph instructs inmates in creative writing at Green Haven Correctional Facility.

Resources:
The critique Ralph mentioned, "The Composition of "Four Quartets" by Helen Gardner, can be ordered from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Composition-Four-Quartets-Helen-Gardner/dp/B001P0GXXC

"Time, Eternity and Immortality" are considered in Four Quartets from an Eastern philosophical perspective in this piece from the journal Modern Science and Vedic Science: http://www.mum.edu/msvs/9199terry.htmlhttp://www.mum.edu/msvs/9199terry.html

Writer/artist Austin Kleon's offers further commentary on Letters to a Young Poet on his engagingly-illustrated blog: http://www.austinkleon.com/2008/07/21/rilkes-letters-to-a-young-poet/http://www.austinkleon.com/2008/07/21/rilkes-letters-to-a-young-poet/

Details on Harvard University Press' new translation of Rilke's collection can be found here:
http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2011/04/dusting-off-rilkes-letters-to-a-young-poet.html