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

"Story’s End" by Kathleen Raine

 

O, I would tell soul’s story to the end,
Psyche on bruised feet walking the hard ways,
The knives, the mountain of ice,
Seeking her beloved through all the world,
Remembering – until at last she knows
Only that long ago she set out to find –
But whom or in what place
No longer has a name.
So through life’s long years she stumbles on
From habit enduring all. Clouds
Disintegrate in sky’s emptiness.
She who once loved remembers only that once she loved:
Is it I who wrote this?

"Shine" by Joni Mitchell

 

2012

Oh, let your little light shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on Vegas and Wall Street
Place your bets
Shine on all the fishermen
With nothing in their nets
Shine on rising oceans and evaporating seas
Shine on our Frankenstein technologies
Shine on science
With its tunnel vision, tunnel vision
Shine on fertile farmlands
Buried under subdivisions

Oh, let your little light shine
Oh, let your little light shine
Shine on the dazzling darkness
That restores us in deep sleep
Shine on what we throw away
And what we keep

Shine on Reverend Pearson
Who threw away
The vain old God
And kept Dickens and Rembrandt and Beethoven
And fresh plowed sod
Shine on good earth, good air, good water
And a safe place
For kids to play
Shine on bombs exploding
Half a mile away

Oh, let your little light shine
Let your little light shine, shine, shine
Shine on worldwide traffic jams
Honking day and night
Shine on another asshole
Passing on the right
Shine on all the red light runners
Busy talking on their cell phones
Shine on the Catholic Church
And the prisons that it owns
Shine on all the Churches
They all love less and less
Shine on a hopeful girl
In a dreamy dress

Oh, let your little light shine
Shine, shine, shine
Let your little light shine
Shine on good humor
Shine on good will
Shine on lousy leadership
Licensed to kill
Shine on dying soldiers
In patriotic pain
Shine on mass destruction
In some God's name
Shine on the pioneers
Those seekers of mental health
Craving simplicity
They traveled inward
Past themselves
Let their little lights shine
May all their little lights shine

"Ain’t Talkin’" by Bob Dylan

 

As I walked out tonight in the mystic garden
The wounded flowers were dangling from the vine
I was passing by yon cool crystal fountain
Someone hit me from behind

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Through this weary world of woe
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
No one on earth would ever know

They say prayer has the power to heal
So pray from the mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I am a-tryin' to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
I'll burn that bridge before you can cross
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
There'll be no mercy for you once you've lost

Now I'm all worn down by weeping
My eyes are filled with tears, my lips are dry
If I catch my opponents ever sleeping
I'll just slaughter 'em where they lie

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Through the world mysterious and vague
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walkin' through the cities of the plague

Well, the whole world is filled with speculation
The whole wide world which people say is round
They will tear your mind away from contemplation
They will jump on your misfortune when you're down

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Eatin' hog-eyed grease in a hog-eyed town
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Some day you'll be glad to have me around

They will crush you with wealth and power
Every waking moment you could crack
I'll make the most of one last extra hour
I'll avenge my father's death then I'll step back

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Hand me down my walkin' cane
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Got to get you out of my miserable brain

All my loyal and my much-loved companions
They approve of me and share my code
I practice a faith that's been long abandoned
Ain't no altars on this long and lonesome road

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
My mule is sick, my horse is blind
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Thinkin' 'bout that gal I left behind

Well, it's bright in the heavens and the wheels are flyin'
Fame and honor never seem to fade
The fire gone out but the light is never dyin'
Who says I can't get heavenly aid?

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Carryin' a dead man's shield
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walkin' with a toothache in my heel

The sufferin' is unending
Every nook and cranny has its tears
I'm not playing, I'm not pretending
I'm not nursin' any superfluous fears

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Walkin' ever since the other night
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Walkin' 'til I'm clean out of sight

As I walked out in the mystic garden
On a hot summer day, a hot summer lawn
Excuse me, ma'am, I beg your pardon
There's no one here, the gardener is gone

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Up the road, around the bend
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
In the last outback at the world's end

Obliterating Posters

Here is what remains of hostage posters after being scraped off a telephone pole near here. It’s as though these hostages don’t exist and what caused their captivity never happened, they are being erased, cancelled. This is probably part of the intention of whoever obliterated these posters.

"The Moon and the Yew Tree" by Sylvia Plath

 

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness –
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and silence.

"December" by John Clare

 

While snow the window-panes bedim,
The fire curls up a sunny charm,
Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim,
The flowering ale is set to warm;
Mirth, full of joy as summer bees,
Sits there, its pleasures to impart,
And children, 'tween their parent's knees,
Sing scraps of carols o'er by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,
Climb up the window-seat with glee,
Likening the snow to falling feathers,
In fancy infant ecstasy;
Laughing, with superstitious love,
O'er visions wild that youth supplies,
Of people pulling geese above,
And keeping Christmas in the skies.

As tho' the homestead trees were drest,
In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves,
As tho' the sun-dried martin's nest,
Instead of ickles, hung the eaves,
The children hail the happy day -
As if the snow were April's grass,
And pleas'd, as 'neath the warmth of May,
Sport o'er the water froze as glass.

"the nation is divided . . ."

 

The Unicorn Rests in a Garden
(or The Unicorn in Captivity)
by an unknown artist, 1495–1505

When the nation is divided

there is no nation: when history is discarded

the old regret what life has become;

there is no nation when people

have lost belief in the soul; there is no nation

when people are divided and turn on each other;

when the nation turns its back 

on what made it a nation

there is no nation:

    ships don't reach harbour,

    cod fish so plentiful off Nfld's coast are gone,

    the massacre of buffalos, a mountain of bones 

    on a bleak autumn morning,

    flash mobs stealing everything from stores,

    crows, carrion, and crowds of people

    live in darkness, 

    goodness is ridiculed, vulgarity         

    celebrated, macabre faces in clouds, 

    mobs pounding on old people's front doors:

what is old is cancelled

as decreed, as legislated; 

and people love ignorance and renounce

their own culture; 

they are crossing the bridge

cities burn and the ruins 

are ploughed into dust—

                                            11 May 2023

First snow, 9 November 2023

Posters of hostages

                                “The evil that men do lives after them;
                             The good is oft interred with their bones.”

                                                ― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

All of the posters shown in a previous post, "Remember the hostages", have been torn down; I saw an older man meticulously peeling and scraping one of the posters from where it had been glued, he was using an exacto knife to do this. Indeed, in reaction to the tearing down of these posters, a neighbouring community has said that anyone removing similar posters will be fined up to $1K.  

     A few days ago, while walking by Concordia University on Sherbrooke Street West, I found posters with fairly offensive and ignorant comments scrawled across them. Whoever this person with a felt pen is he doesn't care about freedom of speech or that there are still over two hundred innocent people being held by terrorists; the person who wrote on the posters doesn't care about the hostages, or about freedom, or about truth, or about decency, he is full of righteous indignation, hate, and ignorance. Freedom of speech seems minor when placed in the context of war and people held as hostages; but freedom of speech is always significant and many people have lost their lives defending this freedom, defending it against censorship and cancellation. If we deny freedom of speech, in this case including destroying posters and writing on posters, we have descended to the level of this person who has written over hostage posters. In many respects we have moved into a very dark age and, I suspect, this darkness will last a very long time. This dark age hasn’t just begun but it has certainly gotten much worse.

I think not . . .
The evidence is to the opposite view . . .

Revised: 08-11-2023

"St, Michael the Weigher" by James Russell Lowell

 

James Russell Lowell

Stood the tall Archangel weighing
All man’s dreaming, doing, saying,
All the failure and the pain,
All the triumph and the gain,
In the unimagined years,
Full of hopes, more full of tears,
Since old Adam’s hopeless eyes
Backward searched for Paradise,
And, instead, the flame-blade saw
Of inexorable Law.

Waking, I beheld him there,
With his fire-gold, flickering hair,
In his blinding armor stand,
And the scales were in his hand:
Mighty were they, and full well
They could poise both heaven and hell
“Angel,” asked I humbly then,
“Weighest thou the souls of men?

That thine office is, I know.”
“Nay,” he answered me, “not so;
But I weigh the hope of Man
Since the power of choice began,
In the world, of good or ill.”
Then I waited and was still.

In one scale I saw him place
All the glories of our race,
Cups that lit Belshazzar’s feast,
Gems, the lightning of the East,
Kublai’s sceptre, Caesar’s sword,
Many a poet’s golden word,
Many a skill of science, vain
To make men as gods again.

In the other scale he threw
Things regardless, outcast, few,
Martyr-ash, arena sand,
Of St. Francis’ cord a strand,
Beechen cups of men whose need
Fasted that the poor might feed,
Disillusions and despairs
Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs,
Broken hearts that brake for Man.

Marvel through my pulses ran
Seeing then the beam divine
Swiftly on this hand decline,
While Earth’s splendor and renown
Mounted light as thistle-down.

Stood the tall Archangel weighing
All man’s dreaming, doing, saying,
All the failure and the pain,
All the triumph and the gain,
In the unimagined years,
Full of hopes, more full of tears,
Since old Adam’s hopeless eyes
Backward searched for Paradise,
And, instead, the flame-blade saw
Of inexorable Law.

Waking, I beheld him there,
With his fire-gold, flickering hair,
In his blinding armor stand,
And the scales were in his hand:
Mighty were they, and full well
They could poise both heaven and hell
“Angel,” asked I humbly then,
“Weighest thou the souls of men?

That thine office is, I know.”
“Nay, ” he answered me,” not so;
But I weigh the hope of Man
Since the power of choice began,
In the world, of good or ill.”
Then I waited and was still.

In one scale I saw him place
All the glories of our race,
Cups that lit Belshazzar’s feast,
Gems, the lightning of the East,
Kublai’s sceptre, Caesar’s sword,
Many a poet’s golden word,
Many a skill of science, vain
To make men as gods again.

In the other scale he threw
Things regardless, outcast, few,
Martyr-ash, arena sand,
Of St. Francis’ cord a strand,
Beechen cups of men whose need
Fasted that the poor might feed,
Disillusions and despairs
Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs,
Broken hearts that brake for Man.

Marvel through my pulses ran
Seeing then the beam divine
Swiftly on this hand decline,
While Earth’s splendor and renown
Mounted light as thistle-down.

The Zeppelin Crash of Billericay, 24 Septemer 1916

 

My friend R.R. Skinner was born in June or July 1908. Reg grew up in Bethnal Green, UK, and one day he told me about the German Zeppelin that crashed at Billericay, in September 1916, during World War One. Reg said that he was appalled by the reaction of the crowd, they cheered when the Zeppelin caught on fire and crashed killing all on board; this event, he said, showed him man's inhumanity to man.

And now let us move up to the present moment and, reading Kathleen Raine's Autobiographies, published in the 1970s, in which she discusses this same event. She writes:

I saw, from the front window of West View, the Billericay Zeppelin pass, a great pencil-like shape, and then a jet of flame, then a blaze that lit up the windows of West View. 'Are there men in it?' I asked; and when I was told 'Yes'  I cried. My father told me afterwards that a dead German officer had been found by a farmer in a field, lying near his path. The man had beautiful teeth, and the farmer stamped on his face, breaking them. (p. 51)

And then Raine discusses seeing a second Zeppelin burn and crash near her home. This was a profound experience for the young Kathleen Raine, who, like my friend Reg Skinner, remembered the event many years later; both were born in June or July 1908. But could Kathleen Raine have seen a Zeppelin, a burning Zeppelin, at her home in Ilford? I suppose this is possible, her home was named West View and Billericay is west of Ilford. Could Reg have seen a burning Zeppelin at Bethnal Green; would citizens in Bethnal Green, perhaps looking up from the street, have cheered as the burning Zeppelin moved across the sky? Bethnal Green is 8.9 miles from Ilford and Billericay is 28.2 miles from Ilford; Bethnal Green to Billericay is 31.3 miles by road. Whatever the case the Zeppelin crash of Billericay was a significant wartime experience for both children.

I remember when a plane crashed near Montreal, in November 1963, and that some of the locals descended on the crash site and stole rings and other possessions from the victims whose body parts had not yet been collected by the authorities. I still remember with disgust that people could steal from these people who had died so violently. Here is a passage from a Toronto Star article published on 29 November 2013: 

Rodgers also said no intact body was found either, only parts. There were 111 passengers and seven crew aboard the flight. Authorities scrambled to get organized.

“In what was the parish of Ste- Thérèse -de-Blainville, there was one police officer, Mr. Aubertin, who somehow maintained security,” said Rodgers, who also oversees recreation for the town.

“But he was quick with people who tried to rob the dead and it’s said he even had to fire a few shots into the air to deter some people from making off with watches or wallets.”

Well, that's also man's inhumanity to man . . .  

Vincelli's Garden Centre

The entrepreneur who wanted to build a 12 story mixed condo/commercial building on this site was defeated in a referendum.The fact is this is a poor location for luxury living, it's beside a huge rail yard with the noise of trains shunting, trains coming and going, and cars and trucks entering and leaving the area; as well, the small strip mall across the street from the proposed condo has never been a success, it's maybe half occupied, so who will shop at the stores in the proposed condo/commercial area? And, finally, this is a low density area of single family dwellings, not condos, not apartments, but families with parents, children, the elderly, working people, all living in homes they rent or own; it is an isolated location unless you have a car. The local residents are hostile to the proposed building they attempted to impose on their neighbourhood, they voted against it; who would vote in favour of a year or longer of construction -- danger to their children caused by large trucks, noise, and dirt -- followed by a needlessly large 12 story, or even a six story, building looming over one's home and community and an influx of strangers? How does that affect one's property taxes? How does that affect the quality of one's life? It doesn't. The age of the 12 story complex in this area has come to an end, but what will be proposed next?

Do not forget the hostages

Do not forget the hostages. Posters on Westminster Avenue.