First, I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity; it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance. Second, its touches of Beauty should never be half way, thereby making the reader breathless instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him, shine over him and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the Luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it, and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.
—John Keats, letter to John Taylor, February 27, 1818
In the late 1940s my father bought several boxes of books second hand, among these were volumes on grammar and English literature published by Oxford University Press. A few years after he died I began reading one of these books, The Oxford Book of English Prose (1945), it was the edition chosen and edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, and a letter by John Keats impressed me; it is Keats's letter of 1818 to John Taylor which includes his famous axiom, "That if Poetry comes not as naturally as Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.” The whole quotation is brilliant, it speaks to us as though it was written only yesterday, and its message is as pertinent today as it was when was first written.
Keats's
axiom anticipates Jack Kerouac's essay on "Elements of Spontaneous
Prose" (1958), both describe a similar approach to writing. Spontaneous
writing can begin as unself-conscious jottings, scribblings, automatic writing,
not censoring what one writes, and then proceeds to being soul-making as it reveals
to the poet aspects of the imagination that have not been made conscious. Poetry is not prose and, while both use language to express something,
poetry and prose are very dissimilar; Keats is writing about poetry but Kerouac's
approach to writing can apply to either poetry or prose. James Joyce was a
favourite writer of Jack Kerouac's but "spontaneous prose" is not the
same as Joyce's "stream of consciousness" which is a narrative technique,
Joyce sought to duplicate the monologue of a character's inner voice. Kerouac's
emphasis is on writing as a process, it is a spontaneous approach to the composition
of a text.
Allen
Ginsberg's phrase "first thought, best thought" is also concerned
with the process of writing. The emphasis in both Kerouac's and Ginsberg's method
of writing is on being spontaneous, on composing poetry that is original and true
to the poet's vision. Spontaneous writing may even be useful, efficacious, for
the poet in discovering his or her authentic voice, the voice in poetry that speaks
from the soul and inner being of the poet. Ginsberg's approach may not result
in consistently well-written poems, but for him a poem is like a Zen garden that includes apparent imperfections.
Let's
also not forget that all poets have a foundation to their work that precedes
writing poems, it is a poet's apprenticeship and is comprised of studying
literature, years of writing to learn the poet's craft, and years of thinking about
poetics. Whether formal or informal, extensive or limited, this foundation
precedes and informs what the poet writes; with it there is an intelligence
that is brought to each poem that is written. Can you induce spontaneity
necessary to write a poem? Some poets have tried to do this by writing poems under
the influence of alcohol or drugs believing that it will short circuit the
ego's intervention when writing; other poets have tried to enter a trance-like
state when they write. These are shamanistic approaches to writing; approached this way a poem
seems to write itself and each poet will have their own experience of this. In
effect, the poet's foundation as a writer—experiential and intellectual—will
always inform what is written spontaneously or otherwise.
Keats's
axiom also reminds us that poetry is a part of the natural world; Keats
mentions leaves on trees so let's briefly consider the symbolism of trees. While
a tree's roots may be deep its branches reach into the sky, this is the joining
of earth with heaven. It is Hades that is beneath the surface of the earth, a
place of darkness but also creativity and growth, plant seeds and in a few days
green shoots appear, visit Hades and you will have something to write about in
your poems. For poets to mature it is necessary to visit the Underworld, as
Persephone did; this is a journey into darkness and, if the poet has the
courage, it is also a place of great creativity, of exposed truth, of revealing
what has been hidden and disguised.
The
sky is also important, the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars, even the clouds, they
suggest the archetypal and symbolical world that pre-exists the intellect; in
the archetypes we find depth and insight, vision and clarity. Both the earth
and the sky are a single movement of seasons and the complexity of
psychological discovery is not one of embracing one or rejecting the other, but
of embracing both, of embracing opposites. This is the natural environment of
poetry and it is the attraction of poetry; meaningful poetry comes from deep in
the unconscious mind, the same place of imagination as dreams and our
unconscious thought processes. No one can force an articulation of this world,
it speaks for itself without the intervention of the ego or the conscious mind,
it must come to consciousness as naturally as leaves to a tree.
C.
G. Jung is one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, he is a
brilliant assimilator of ideas, an explorer of inner space, and a spiritual
guide. Mythology has always been important to poets, for instance in both William
Blake's and John Keats's poetry, and Jung wrote about mythology in the context
of his study of psychology; his followers have continued this work. As well,
Jung's use of archetypes as a way to understand human behaviour speaks directly
to our inner being; one of the important writers on this subject is Maud Bodkin
who taught at Oxford University and wrote Archetypal Patterns in Poetry: Psychological Studies of
Imagination (1934). There are other concepts that Jung popularized
and that have resonated with a large contemporary audience, they are especially
relevant to poets; for instance, the human Shadow, alchemy, anima and animus, the collective unconscious, dream work, introvert and extravert, and even Jung's interest in
astrology all help to expand the poet's vision. Jung's study of consciousness
is rich in ideas and images for poets, it can be a necessary part of the poet's
foundation that I spoke of above.
My
reaction to Keats's statement when I was sixteen or seventeen years old and
reading it for the first time was one of recognition, "of course, that's
how poems are written." Keats's axiom was something that I knew but as a memory
remembered. The axiom is still important for poets; the alternative is to
suffer a loss of connection to what makes real poetry that is not just fashion,
entertainment, or formalistic writing. Keats states what is obvious to poets:
poetry should come as naturally to the poet as leaves grow on a tree, you
cannot make leaves grow and neither can you force a poem to be written.
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- 28 May 2020
