Preface, A Poet's Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet

 

Preface

  

This is a compilation of some of the essays and reviews I wrote from 1975 to 2018. My main concern in these essays is with two aspects of poetry, the poet's journey and the art of poetry; indeed, these topics have fascinated me from when I began writing poetry in my early teens. Visual or concrete poetry also interests me and I have included some examples of my experimental poetry. 

            Whether poets are born or made every poet is on a unique journey, this is the journey to writing original poems in an authentic voice. This journey includes poets who are one's mentors; the poet friends of one's youth; the poets who are an influence on one's work and thinking; and the varied experiences of life that are important to the development of the poet. The art of poetry includes ideas about poetry; poetry as the voice of the human soul; visionary poetry; the purpose of experimental poetry; confessional poetry; and finding an authentic voice in poetry.

            Some aspects of the poet's journey have changed over the years. We have more people today writing poetry, giving poetry readings, and trying to publish their poems than possibly ever before. Most of these people aren't reading or buying poetry books but poetry is still very much alive, it's just not the same type of involvement as it was in the past. The poetry scene today is less sophisticated than it was forty years ago; back then there were fewer poets, fewer prizes and awards, and fewer creative writing courses. I remember when new books by Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop and others were given extensive and serious reviews in newspapers and periodicals.  New books by Canadian poets, for instance Irving Layton, P.K. Page, and Earle Birney, were also given serious and intelligent reviews in newspapers and periodicals. These poets from a previous generation had an important place in our culture but there are no poets today with the same cultural relevance and prominence that poets once had. This does not signal the end or even the diminishment of poetry. Poetry endures for one specific reason: poetry is the voice of the human soul and it gives access to the inner life both when reading poetry and when writing poetry. For this reason, as well, poetry will never die.

             Many things have changed in this post-postmodern world in which we live; however,  some things will never change. Are people really all that different now than they were five hundred or five thousand years ago? The human spirit endures, human kindness and human malice endure, and the fundamental vision of art endures when it is acknowledges the human spirit. All art is an expression of the visionary capacity to see what is below the mundane surface of things; indeed, all art is vision in its transformation of the complexity and depth of the unconscious mind. All poets who have set forth on this extraordinary journey of self-discovery, creativity, and writing poetry know they must find their authentic voice and that this voice is an expression of the poet's vision, and this expression has a perennial place in the consciousness of humanity.

             

        

                                                                                    Stephen Morrissey

                                                                                    Montreal, Quebec

                                                                                    December 2018

Morrissey, Stephen. A Poet's Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet. Ekstasis Editions, Victoria. 2019