Lord, how I love your poems. I rarely if ever, get them intellectually (why would anyone want to grasp a poem intellectually is beyond me), but oh, how they resonate in me! You and Silent are cut from the same cloth. Sometimes I think you're the same person.- Kailashana
Kailashana wrote:Lord, how I love your poems. I rarely if ever, get them intellectually (why would anyone want to grasp a poem intellectually is beyond me), but oh, how they resonate in me! You and Silent are cut from the same cloth. Sometimes I think you're the same person.
I see the power, and emotion, in his language too and have asked him to help me understand what he is saying twice now with no response but, in response to your (why would anyone want to grasp a poem intellectually is beyond me) I will share my thoughts with you, with whom I already feel a deep respect.
I don't think a poem is a piece of art. I think it is a communication.
Art, for one crude definition, may be that expression of being that has no borders or boundaries and can be interpreted by the beholder however they see fit. Expressive art does not need a listener, a watcher, it just is, with or without you.
The concept of using language to express being is, in itself, bordered by the fact that we each of us share the collective mind that was bought into being by those very same words. Without language we humans would not think, this is a fact. We would be, and feel, and exist, but we would not think. Our thoughts can in turn be used to show each other the content, the warp and weft of our minds, and this is more than good, I would argue it is necessary if we are to mend our wicked ways, at all.
The limitation of everyday language is that it hopelessly fails at expressing the indefinable, naturally, by definition.
When we wish to communicate something other than the technical 'how to, where from, what for' of being and reach into the deeper nature of our consciousness then the very words that we need to use to understand each other serve to both open the gate and then effectively stand in its way.
Enter the poem.
A way of expressing the extraordinary in an ordinary way, through speech. Music, painting, dreaming, dancing, cooking, love-making, all the non-verbal ways of connecting to each other, of being, are gloriously free of this terrible impediment of words and their interpretations. Hence the poet's natural wish to free the language so and loosen any bounds of convention.
I understand this impulse but I reject it, only and purely in the poem. This is my reason
If I hear someone and I do not understand them then I have the choice to ignore them or to try harder or differently to understand them better. If I just ignore them then, well who cares really, people are ignoring each other all over the world right now, so what. If I try harder or differently to understand them and I get somewhere then great, well done me. But if I still do not get what they are saying no matter how much I squint my eyes at it then I have another option, to ask them to how me understand it, or even just to tell me again, in a way that I may grasp.
For myself, I feel that if someone has not understood me then the fault lies with me first. I have been too obscure, or clever, or elusive. Often it is my ego's wish to appear mystical and wise that is behind the veiled language that I have used to effectively hide what it was that I wanted to say. When I could have said something simply I said it with some flourishes, some panache, and left my listener untouched or worse, bewildered.
Most people choose the 'ignore' option. Which is why poets are generally left only talking to each other.
We can do better, but 'we' don't have to. I am only speaking for myself.
What do you think?- DJW
more comments................http://delightedteahouse.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1674
Kailashana wrote:Lord, how I love your poems. I rarely if ever, get them intellectually (why would anyone want to grasp a poem intellectually is beyond me), but oh, how they resonate in me! You and Silent are cut from the same cloth. Sometimes I think you're the same person.
I see the power, and emotion, in his language too and have asked him to help me understand what he is saying twice now with no response but, in response to your (why would anyone want to grasp a poem intellectually is beyond me) I will share my thoughts with you, with whom I already feel a deep respect.
I don't think a poem is a piece of art. I think it is a communication.
Art, for one crude definition, may be that expression of being that has no borders or boundaries and can be interpreted by the beholder however they see fit. Expressive art does not need a listener, a watcher, it just is, with or without you.
The concept of using language to express being is, in itself, bordered by the fact that we each of us share the collective mind that was bought into being by those very same words. Without language we humans would not think, this is a fact. We would be, and feel, and exist, but we would not think. Our thoughts can in turn be used to show each other the content, the warp and weft of our minds, and this is more than good, I would argue it is necessary if we are to mend our wicked ways, at all.
The limitation of everyday language is that it hopelessly fails at expressing the indefinable, naturally, by definition.
When we wish to communicate something other than the technical 'how to, where from, what for' of being and reach into the deeper nature of our consciousness then the very words that we need to use to understand each other serve to both open the gate and then effectively stand in its way.
Enter the poem.
A way of expressing the extraordinary in an ordinary way, through speech. Music, painting, dreaming, dancing, cooking, love-making, all the non-verbal ways of connecting to each other, of being, are gloriously free of this terrible impediment of words and their interpretations. Hence the poet's natural wish to free the language so and loosen any bounds of convention.
I understand this impulse but I reject it, only and purely in the poem. This is my reason
If I hear someone and I do not understand them then I have the choice to ignore them or to try harder or differently to understand them better. If I just ignore them then, well who cares really, people are ignoring each other all over the world right now, so what. If I try harder or differently to understand them and I get somewhere then great, well done me. But if I still do not get what they are saying no matter how much I squint my eyes at it then I have another option, to ask them to how me understand it, or even just to tell me again, in a way that I may grasp.
For myself, I feel that if someone has not understood me then the fault lies with me first. I have been too obscure, or clever, or elusive. Often it is my ego's wish to appear mystical and wise that is behind the veiled language that I have used to effectively hide what it was that I wanted to say. When I could have said something simply I said it with some flourishes, some panache, and left my listener untouched or worse, bewildered.
Most people choose the 'ignore' option. Which is why poets are generally left only talking to each other.
We can do better, but 'we' don't have to. I am only speaking for myself.
What do you think?- DJW
more comments................http://delightedteahouse.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1674
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