by Stephen Morrissey

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"Soul is what makes us more than a pile of chemicals and a 
tangle of neurons; soul is that essence of consciousness that
enables us to know ourselves and our world, to recognize 
what is unique in us as individuals and what each one of us
shares with the immense totality of which we are a part."
		–June Singer, 
		Boundaries of the Soul (1994), p. xi


1

No poetics should ignore the place of psyche or soul 
in writing poetry, this is because poetry is the voice 
of the soul. Of course, some people don't believe the soul
exists, they associate it with organized religion 
that they oppose as irrational and superstitious. 
We know what a soulless city looks like, it is sterile, 
plastic, glass, concrete, stainless steel, and lacking 
the human dimension, lacking the uniqueness of the individual. 
The soul made itself known in my life when I was a child, 
with dreams that changed my life and writing poetry 
that allowed me to be creative and express my inner being;
how much less my life would have been without poetry.

I believe that the soul is fundamental to poetry,
going back to the "Epic of Gilgamesh", going back 
to the beginning of time and the first poem, and going 
forward to the next century and the next millennium; 
as long as the human spirit exists people will write
poetry and the soul will express itself. For this reason, 
poetry will never die; it may become scarce, but 
it won't die.

2

"Break the line when you run out of breath", sd/ Charles Olson, 
but is this applicable to poets other than Olson and his cohort?  
Is breath so significant in writing poetry that it should be used
to indicate line breaks? This may seem obscure but it is important, 
it has to do with how poems are written, how lines of poetry scan, 
and where lines end and other lines begin. It also affirms the importance 
of the human soul in poetry. 

Although in a different way than Walt Whitman, 
Olson follows Whitman in affirming the importance of the physical body; 
however, Whitman celebrated the human soul as much as he celebrated 
the body; in fact, it is Whitman's soul that is celebrating "the body electric", 
it is Whitman's soul that is celebrating the physical side of life. 
Other poets, Pound, Eliot, H.D., and Yeats, (there are too many others to list), 
affirm a more practical way of putting words on a page; free verse and traditional 
metrical verse don't place importance on breath indicating line breaks.
	
Instead of Charles Olson's theory, in "Projective Verse",
think of poems as transcriptions of the soul, and lines of poetry 
are patterns of thought, they are what the soul has to say: 
what the soul perceives, the poem says. 
	
With deference to Charles Olson, here is a different model 
for how poems are written; it pertains to the deep language of poetry:

			From the soul to the brain; 
			from the brain to thought;
			from thought to the pen 
			and the poem is written.

3

The vocabulary of the soul includes Jungian terms,
it includes archetypes, synchronicity, the human shadow, 
anima/animus, individuation, and others; these are 
descriptions of how the soul manifests itself, 
not instructions on what to write.  
	
You have had an experience of the soul
when you know something intuitively, or if you've 
fallen in love, or spent years writing poems, or had 
a synchronistic experience, or been moved by dreams— 
by a dream that changes one's life—or by a work of art 
or literature, by a movie or a play, or music; these experiences 
can change how we see ourselves and our world, they can change 
the direction of our life, they can deepen our understanding of life, 
they are a part of our journey, including what we do in the future, 
what we become, and who we are. 

4    
Whatever people around us may think, freedom is not negotiable, 
whether it is freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, or freedom 
to think whatever you want. No one can make art that is authentic 
to their vision and maintain their integrity as a poet if they live in fear 
of being censored; censorship and creative expression are mutually exclusive. 
	
There is state censorship and censorship by social media, 
which is cancel culture, and we also censor ourselves; self-censorship 
comes from within us while other types of censorship come from 
outside of us, but both are pernicious and dangerous to creativity and
free expression. No poet can accept silence imposed by cancel
culture or state censorship, it would be soul suicide to do so. 
We don't live in what Keats described as a "vale of soul making" 
just to pander to people who are ignorant, or intolerant, or bullies. 
My rule is: write exactly what I feel hesitant about writing, what I 
want to keep silent about, what I want to censor; that's where poetry 
lies, it is found in the shadow of consciousness. 
	
No matter how offensive something may seem to be, 
freedom of speech is essential to the arts and to democracy, 
it is more important than catering to someone's sensibility,
or giving in to the fear of being attacked by them, verbally or in print, 
or their demand for censorship and the denial of freedom 
that has been hard won over many centuries. When a poet sides 
with those who would censor the writing and statements
of others, that poet has joined the gang of repressors, 
that poet has denied poetry and the work of being a poet. 
In this life there is always somebody who wants to impose 
what they think is best for everybody else, who wants to close down 
a conversation, ban works of art, and censor what people are saying. 
But poetry isn't written to make anyone happy or safe; the soul doesn't care 
if you are happy or not, the soul cares about the truth of your existence. 


5

I began writing poems when I was young
and I've described this as the beginning of my journey
as a poet. "All my heroes were poets" writes Ken Norris,
as poets were also my heroes: including Allen Ginsberg, 
Walt Whitman, Matthew Arnold, William Blake, 
John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Chaucer; 
and in my own country, my poet heroes are 
the Confederation Poets, the McGill Group of poets, 
Louis Dudek, Irving Layton, Al Purdy, Alden Nowlan, 
and others. A young poet writes for the love of writing poems 
and, if the poet is lucky, the soul appears, the soul is awakened; 
a new maturity and intelligence in the writing is the appearance 
of the soul's presence in the poet's work.
	
The nature of psyche, which is a synonym for soul, 
is to find meaning and wholeness in life; and where is love?
Love is in every expression of the soul, every poem, every
insight, every action coming from the soul's awakening;
the soul has a propensity for individuation; 
the soul gives joy to life;
the soul follows the bright star of love; 
the soul lights the darkness surrounding us.

Author Bio

Montreal-born poet Stephen Morrissey is the author of twelve books, including poetry and literary criticism. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Honours in English with Distinction, from Sir George Williams University in 1973. In 1976 he graduated with a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from McGill University. In the 1970s Morrissey was associated with the Vehicule Poets. The Stephen Morrissey Fonds, 1963 – 2014, are housed at Rare Books and Special Collections of the McLennan Library at McGill University. Stephen Morrissey married poet Carolyn Zonailo in 1995.