{"id":164460837,"date":"2025-05-27T08:44:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T08:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writetosuccess.net\/poetic-wisdom\/"},"modified":"2025-05-27T08:44:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T08:44:46","slug":"poetic-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writetosuccess.net\/zh\/poetic-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetic Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finding answers within, and between, the lines<\/h2>

\u201cNo matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.\u201d ~ Matsuo Basho<\/p><\/div>

\"pagoda<\/figure>

Seventeenth-century poet and Zen Buddhist Basho was an extraordinary poet whose travel dairies of haibun<\/a><\/em> <\/a>\u2014 a mixture of prose and poetry \u2014 are as fresh and heartfelt today as they were four centuries ago. <\/p>

I met an old friend of mine at Minakuchi, after 20 years of separation<\/p>

A lively cherry<\/p>

In full bloom <\/p>

Between the two lives <\/p>

Now made one. <\/p><\/blockquote>

It\u2019s been my privilege to read a variety of poetry these last few days. As I\u2019ve travelled, it has arrived in remembered fragments, borrowed books, emails, second-hand tomes, song lyrics. <\/p>

Poetry\u2019s economy, precision and wisdom never cease to open new vistas. What a prose writer might need 10 pages, or 100, to develop and deliver, a poet can communicate in a few piercing lines. <\/p>

Part of what makes poetry so compelling is the omnipresent tension between written and unwritten. So much must<\/em> remain unsaid and every word on the page stands for the thousand roads not taken. <\/p>

From The Records of a Travel-Worn Satchel:<\/em><\/h3>

\u201cSomething in me took to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit, or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain victories over the others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and another.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>

Always wavering between doubts of one kind and another <\/em>\u2014 is there a better description for how it feels to navigate the life\u2019s constant, contradictory currents? <\/p>

\"people<\/figure>

Poetry renders sublime what might be merely sentimental in less artful language. <\/p>

One of my charity shop book finds yesterday was a Penguin Poetry Library edition (\u00a31.49) of Tennyson. <\/p>

\u2018But Were I Loved\u2019<\/h3>

But were I loved, as I desire to be,<\/p>

What is there in the great sphere of the earth, <\/p>

And range of evil between death and birth, <\/p>

That I should fear, \u2014 If I were loved by thee?<\/p>

All the inner, all the outer world of pain<\/p>

Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine,<\/p>

As I have heard that, somewhere in the main,<\/p>

Fresh-water springs come up through bitter brine.<\/p>

\u2018Twere joy, not fear, clasped hand-in-hand with thee, <\/p>

To wait for death \u2014 mute \u2014 careless of all ills,<\/p>

Apart upon a mountain, tho\u2019 the surge <\/p>

Of some new deluge from a thousand hills<\/p>

Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge <\/p>

Below us, as far on as eye could see. <\/p><\/blockquote>

The sentiment is timeworn \u2014 s\/he loves me not \u2014 but the deft imagery makes the it dance and sparkle like \u2018fresh-water springs\u2019: note the \u2018great sphere of the earth\u2019 which is echoed\/supplanted by the \u2018world of pain\u2019 which is then cleaved just as the spring cuts through the brine. <\/p>

The \u2018surge of some new deluge\u2019 serves as a metaphor both for death and the rush of falling in love: a perfectly coherent contradiction that is instantly less compelling when prosified. <\/p>

(A contemporary poet expressed this idea with equal acuity: \u2018to die by your side\/ is such a heavenly way to die\u2019 (\u2018There is a Light that Never Goes Out\u2019 by The Smiths)).<\/p>

\"a<\/figure>

Another passed-along treasure I encountered was a Faber Paperback of archy\u2019s life of mehitabel <\/em>by Don Marquis, pristine apart from a diminutive pencil annotation on the title page: Sheffield, January 1983.<\/p>

If you haven\u2019t yet the pleasure of acquaintance, archy is literate cockroach, and mehitabel his feline sidekick. archy communicates by jumping from key to key on a typewriter, hence the lack of capitals and punctuation. <\/p>

The poems are hilarious and slyly poignant; they are also, as the following excerpt shows, Modernist masterpieces in miniature: formally innovative, allusive, playful.<\/p>

\u2018the return of archy\u2019<\/h3>

where have i been so long<\/p>

you ask me<\/p>

i have been going up <\/p>

and down like the devil<\/p>

seeking what i might devour<\/p>

i am hungry always hungry <\/p>

and in the end i shall <\/p>

eat everything<\/p>

all the world shall come at<\/p>

last to the multitudinous maws<\/p>

of insects<\/p>

a civilization perishes<\/p>

before the tireless teeth <\/p>

of little little germs<\/p>

ha ha i have thrown off the mask<\/p>

at last<\/p>

you thought i was only<\/p>

an archy<\/p>

but i am more than that<\/p>

i am anarchy<\/p><\/blockquote>

Thus an American humorist preceded, by several decades, John Lydon\u2019s evergreen punk provocation: I wanna be anarchy<\/em>. <\/p>

That\u2019s how it goes, though, with life and with poetry. Attention reveals that threads submerge and surface; they don\u2019t snap. <\/p>

Poetry offered 17th century haiku masters, 19th century laureates and 20th century magazine columnists the stringent freedom to use the raw material of nature, love, disappointment, scripture, politics and sheer fancy to render fantastic things.<\/p>

It offers us a mind-and-creativity expanding opportunity to see the world \u2014 and ourselves \u2014 through new lenses. It offers surprise, challenge and, dare I say, comfort.<\/p>

What poem moved you lately? Please share!<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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