Seeing You For The First Time…
is like remembering
that with Indians, it is all one:
Velvet rain falling over lush Peace Hills back home -
Old man stone glowing in fire
at Beetle Omeasoo’s sweatlodge at Ermineskin -
Hundreds of black wings beating in the great nation that is the sky
each night high above Coastal Salish ground -
Or…your gentle voice heard in woods at Qu’appelle
photo of larry by j-ro
editing a friend's poetry manuscript and helping another with their work it occurred to me that this poem might shed some light on MY theory and process (in particular), it is simply the way i see and do it...proceed at your own interest...
poetry is NOT for everybuddy...one of my favorite crushes, one of the ten most beautiful people in the world informed me she wouldn't even finish reading one of my poems that she came across...this is not to focus on her (i mean it’s clear she loves my body…but i want her to love my mind - i’m an artist after all) but to indicate how adamant people can be or how adverse to verse some people are...but why should this be? - many theories out there but i tend to think the reasons are mainly these:
a) people tend to think of poetry ONLY as that Shakespearean sonnet they made you memorize while holding a gun to your head back in high school...it was traumatic, you know it was AND you never did figure out what the hell was meant before and after the words: tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow...
b) the only poetry you've read since high school was by that ditzy, hippy-chick or the whacked out dude so spaced on the chronic that you thought everything they said was poetry (cause you were a little whack-y AND ditzy yerself back then)...until much later you realized they were committing to paper every pointless, free associative, incoherent pile of syllabic word-turds you ever read but it also occurs to you much later how badly you wanted to get in their pants or how bad they wanted in yours, so much so that even the words "fuck off and die!" seemed to resonate with insight (at last - someone really gets me!), seemed razor-sharp with clarity of purpose and breadth of vision and…romance, even (whoah...think i love him/her).
So people have either read the most difficult and challenging poetry in the English language (the dreaded Elizabethan iambic pentameter) OR the shit that literally means nothing…at any rate had you the chance to read a cross selection of contemporary poetry (that is, poetry written in your time, which typically is free-verse or not in a specific structure on the page) there isn't a doubt in my mind that you would eventually find work by someone that does in fact speak to you, resonates with you and has you come to appreciate what can often be the profound power and beauty of language (more about this topic in future posts)...
for now, it would appear that i must be changing, growing or getting weak in the head because i'm doing something i NEVER do...which is – ANALYZE A POEM...of my own... this one called: Seeing You For The First Time...(located at the top of this post)
using the first line as the title is a device that goes back centuries...couldn't possibly remember where I first saw it, though i know Shakespeare did do this often with his numbered sonnets as did ee cummings, bill bissett, al purdy and many, many other poem-makers have also done this through the ages and i rather like to do this at times when the opening line results in a sense of intrigue or contemplation in the reader...i try to find (use/write) something specific but also it is working if there’s a chance the reader believes they could actually contribute the next line...admittedly, though, writing this first section of explanation reminds me that the first line of THIS particular poem became the title only AFTER most of the rest had been composed...so, the use of this device didn't become apparent to me to until later in the process but it's an example of what i call a happy accident...this might seem to imply that ALL or ANY poem or poetry could simply use as it's title the first line of the poem but this is not the case…
back to the poem…I’ll come clean, now…this one was inspired by (surprise, surprise)…a girl!...i had the opening line (which became the title)…then, very simply…I compared that meeting to 4 different and beautiful things:
1. rainfall
2. rocks in a fire
3. birds flying
4. the woman’s voice
...and that’s all there was to it...more or less...
seeing her for the first time WAS beautiful…the title/first line would be a cliché if the rest of the poem used typical language or imagery…it would not work if I simply said:
…seeing you is like rainfall, rocks in a fire, bird’s flying and your voice…
we learned in early grade school what the words “like” or “as” do to a sentence…it takes a phrase from being understood literally and then makes it a figure of speech (a metaphor)…so, seeing her wasn’t actually or in fact (literally) all those things, it was LIKE all those things, this idea goes a long, long way in language…if you say: seeing you IS nice…seeing you is good - these sentiments may be true but they are bland, mundane and hearing them a thousand times will mean much less the thousandth time you hear it…and haven’t we heard “nice” or “happy” used thousands of times by the time we become adults?...nice and good are for babies and puppies…
the craft of writing involves your choice of words and arrangement of them, the specifics that will spur the imagination of the reader - it's in the details...this is where it can be way, way overdone or one uses descriptions heard a million times (but you know what? people love that...ask Hallmark), OR the poem can become something fresh, not said in quite the same way before, evocative of so much OR it may simply sound lyrical to the point where speech and music seem to meld...ALL these things are possible at this stage if you care enough (or if you care little about what you make) - - in this poem, alongside the 4 items, i have also included four specific Indian PLACES; peace hills, ermineskin, coast salish ground and qu’appelle…NOT ALL readers will be aware of all the references but I’m betting the good reader will make those connections without having heard of one or all of the geographical places referred to in the piece…
i confess, i can’t say precisely what: with indians it is all one, means, but i don't need to…i did want to convey the idea that…indians…know…what do they know?...this question in my mind propels the poem, elevates it, transports the reader’s mind, implies so much, opens the piece so that any reader of any background will intuitively define this phrase for themselves…this, in my mind is where god came in, the synaptic exchange, the happy accident, where the rubber met the road, where the exposition became art…
It then occurred to me that indians are only here today BECAUSE WE REMEMBER, we exist the way we do because of the way we keep our histories’ alive…with our voices, through orality, through externalizing memory (in other words, talking - and now, through writing, even blogging, very subversive if you ask me, you may disagree but go ahead,…you’re allowed)…so it also felt intuitive to place the idea of memory or remembering SOMEWHERE in the piece…
This all could be summed up by saying: first seeing her reminded me of these beautiful things – but i wanted her to fall in love in with me, i wanted to inspire the reader to look at objects of their own desire in a way they never had before…it was and remains a tall order but it’s what you want to do every time out…you want to somehow change the universe for someone (sometimes it’s just yourself) with your ideas because it was done for you, to you by others before you and it’s a safe bet that these experiences/exchanges will continue long after my time…you want the words you choose to be vivid and strong and say a lot with a lot of power but often times it is (what you don’t say or) what you say by implication that has the most power.
SO…how much of this, in the end, applies to what i wrote that day?...all of it.
How much of this occurred to me WHILE i wrote it?...none of it.
it this i call…magic
© 2010 Champsteen Publishing
thank you
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