How to Be a Poet

[Wat_Tyler]

Because I need the reminders, I always perk up at things like this:

How to Be a Poet​

By: Wendell Berry​

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

 

[Bigtitsbitch1000x]

Wendell Berry, as a poet rooted in the land, might have as appreciated this commentary on poetry, tradition, and life:

( O )( O )

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I like that!!!


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essad_Toptani_(politician)

 

[Angeline]

I just read this interview and thought it belongs in this thread. I hope you don't mind. I especially like the poet's comment that poetry is concerned with the language of feeling instead of the language of information.


https://lithub.com/alan-felsenthal-...-as-sacred-and-capturing-the-feeling-of-life/

 

[Tzara]

I just read this interview and thought it belongs in this thread. I hope you don't mind. I especially like the poet's comment that poetry is concerned with the language of feeling instead of the language of information.


https://lithub.com/alan-felsenthal-...-as-sacred-and-capturing-the-feeling-of-life/

One of my favorite quotes from Wittgenstein is "Do not forget that a poem, although it is composed in the language of information, is not used in the language-game of giving information" (from Zettel).

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I just read this interview and thought it belongs in this thread. I hope you don't mind. I especially like the poet's comment that poetry is concerned with the language of feeling instead of the language of information.


https://lithub.com/alan-felsenthal-...-as-sacred-and-capturing-the-feeling-of-life/

Of course, it's Laurel's thread, so we all get to participate unless we misbehave too much. Besides, my "minding" would defeat the entire purpose of this kind of thread, that of exchanging some observations about that which we seem to like.


I liked this bit:

When I write I’m trying to understand life, to “see it feelingly.” Death, too. My observations try to be accurate to this language of feeling, not the language of information.
Along a similar line, I'm packing books here and I found a copy of my mother's first cousin's poetry, he of published poet/college professor status. I think that it's his latest book. He was held up as smarter than the rest of us, but I always found him boring, and his poems seem to me to start here and go there like small children leading the oxcart into the ditch and hopelessly miring it in. The kernel of a creative thought undeveloped. So, I suppose that my assignment is to read that book one more time and then either put it in the box to keep or the one to give away. I'll try to set aside my judgybits.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

When I can’t get with another poet’s idea or a feel. I like to be a mechanic. Pull it to bits. Look at the technique. One Christmas two of my ‘brothers’ and I pulled a jap motor to bits. Instead of the usual Christmas accoutrements on the dinning room table we had this motor all shinny and clean. It was a piece of art. Not something I associate with jap motors. Apologies for speaking in the vernacular. Sometimes a poem’s beauty is in its nuts and bolts.

Fuck the water, look at the cup.

Which is a way around the judgybits. I like the analogy and the engine story. I'm in the midst of exploring the inner mechanics of a M1 rifle. As it gets cleaner, it gets prettier, especially in its steampunk qualities.


I try not to overthink poetry. I try to allow it to arrive.


In this case, I have an old resentment to set aside.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Smith & Wessen made every poem equal. The M1 Garland made some of them great.

Patton was a huge M1 fan, and I think he appreciated poetry. Perhaps it's the mechanics.