What I Meant (I think)

It's easier to explain what I didn't mean: the cave paintings themselves contain (AFAIK) no secret poems in cipher. (That probably won't stop anyone from looking.)

So, any 30-millennia-old tribal epics are as extinct as the cave bear. But, to me and probably other fellow poets, the very idea that such works may have existed once excites the imagination, bolsters a sense of mission and provides a connection to prehistoric antiquity and perhaps the essence of humanity itself.

In other words: "Cool!"

Old Long Since

While ruminating over a magazine article concerning the fate of the cave bear, something occurred to me: what if some of these cave paintings (used in the article to illustrate what the now-extinct bear may have looked like) served as mnemonic devices for poets? An outline for epics composed to celebrate or commemorate big events in the life of a tribe?

This is not original -- I know I've heard or read it somewhere some time ago. But, if this hypothesis proved to be true even once, it would be staggering. Think of it -- poems more than 30,000 years old!

BTW -- I may have finished The Back Nine (search post for that name). Can you guess its guiding principle? (Hint: A castle needs more than just a tower. The "fascicles" represent, for my purposes, the plant conservatory. The third list will include poetic "tapestries.")

Sir Phil and the Worth of It

When this English poetry thing got under full steam, a poet in my Back Nine wrote "A Defense of Poesie." Ever since then, we've felt the need to defend our right to write, in every way possible.

I don't know why that is, really. I suppose our shared Anglo-Australo-American culture (is "Australo" right?) is so driven by its work-ethic that poetry looks like a waste of time. We know it's the opposite, but it seems sometimes that we're the only ones.

We also know poetry is hard work, even if it's of the "spontaneous bop prosody" type. Especially that one, since its inspiration/criticism vector is calculated simultaneously, rather than measured continuously. (I'm a math idiot, so the preceding metaphor is equally idiotic. Sorry.)

Here in the States, pragmatism is the one philosophic movement originally ascribed to our country, at least as I learned it. And in this country, nothing looks less pragmatic than poetry. Why on Earth would anyone do it, other than as a way for the non-musical to sing the blues? (Actually, not a bad purpose, come to think of it. The blues also use pathos, humor and metaphor to try and bury death, as well as uncover transformation.)

Nothing is less pragmatic than poetry? Perhaps. Nothing human is surely more powerful. What social, political, economic movement has lasted as long as anything on The Top Ten, for instance? The problem is that time tests the quality of our work -- there's really no way around that fact. Some really good poetry grabs people from the start, other works take longer -- much longer, for more than a few. However, this fact should not deter us. In fact, it should do the opposite. Poetry is the polarity, the paradox, the unknown we alone know. And we are its proof.

We sit at the intersection of time and space, alone and aware of the oncoming traffic. We can either get it in gear or get clobbered. The poetry is how we go further.

That's how it should be. For us, nothing less than the best will do.

A Bloody Sacrifice

"Give! Give! Just give yourself away!" So shouted the clergyman from his perch one Sunday many years ago -- urging the congregation to be more charitable, I suppose.

As I sat there listening to him expand on this theme, I wondered to myself: Once they've all given themselves away, who would be left to do the giving?

It's a question that harks back to a post I made not very long after I started this blog in 2008. The post is called "Ouch!" and I think it relates to this issue. Once they've put a laurel on you, you're pretty much done with being yourself whenever or wherever you feel like it. You're expected to do this, be that or whatever comes with the laurel you're given.

And that laurel may be invisible to the laureate. While the official ones are usually visible, laurels can also be imaginary. And, the imaginary ones can work more like labels than awards. (Maybe the official ones do, too. I wouldn't know about that, personally.)

A recent television advertising campaign urges recipients of a certain program to "guard their cards," that is, protect the identity guarantees that allow them to benefit from this program. I believe, and strongly, that poets need to guard their talents, time and treasure (in whatever form). A misguided laurel can just as bad as a misapplied label.

This hazard just comes with the job.

I told you it was thankless, didn't I?

The Rake Over His Leaves

My new look is the herald: I'm not taking another break so much as trying something new.

I'd been wondering over the last few months how to move from macroblogger to microblogger. Now, an elegy in elegant journalese* over a dead poetry program has prompted me to move from wonderer to wanderer.

Join the Wanderer's Progress (if any) at

http://marco218.jaiku.com

We'll see what happens together.

*By 'journalese' (in this case, anyway), I do not mean 'hackneyed newspaper or magazine writing' but the 'language of the journal' that poets (like me) sometimes use to get our points across.

____
Afternote: This is a dead link. My 'pome' of stacked microblog posts wasn't all that great, anyway. Count me '+ed' from now on!

Have Gun, Will Travel*

"If, in your working hours, you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public, nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain."

from "The Inner Ring," collected in The Weight of Glory: and other addresses by C.S. Lewis, HarperCollins, New York: 2001, pp. 156-7.

_____

*I don't have a gun. It's just a metaphor. From an old TV show about a man called ... .