William Stafford, one of my favorite poets, seems just the right poet, with just the right poem, to remind us what poetry can do for us. He wakes me up with his warning of becoming one of those "vacant effective people," and then gives good guidance about the " line along from one thing to the next," that thread, which leads me into what matters for me, what "interests me strangely."
Are there poems, poets, or even "lines" that remind you of what matters and who "interest you, strangely?"
An Introduction to Some Poems
Look: no one ever promised for sure
that we would sing. We have decided
to moan. In a strange dance that
we don't understand till we do it, we
have to carry on.
Just as in sleep you have to dream
the exact dream to round out your life,
so we have to live that dream into stories
and hold them close at you, close at the
edge we share, to be right.
We find it an awful thing to meet people,
serious or not, who have turned into vacant
effective people, so far lost that they
won't believe their own feelings
enough to follow them out.
The authentic is a line from one thing
along to the next; it interests us.
Strangely, it relates to what works,
but is not quite the same. It never
swerves for revenge,
Or profit, or fame: it holds
together something more than the world,
this line. And we are your wavery
efforts at following it. Are you coming?
Good: now it is time.
~ by William Stafford, from The Way It Is: New and Selected Poems © Graywolf Press, 1998.
In reading your post, I couldn't bring to mind one poem that speaks to me. Instead my mind immediately went to the first "writing" journal I kept. (It's dated 1986, and it represents my first attempt in moving away from the "Dear Diary" writing experiences as a younger child.)
ReplyDeleteCovered with mauve fabric,faded from the years, poetry lives within this old friend that has traveled with me throughout my life as a teacher and now as a coach.
The majority of the poems are ones I collected--some from friends, others from strangers, only one or two from me.
Yet trapped on the yellowed pages are issues, stuggles, and experiences of the 16 year old me. Each poem provides a reminder that literature is the way we connect and look for insight into the reality of life.