Something to Write About

"The Uses of Sorrow”

(in my sleep I dreamed this poem)

//

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness. 

//

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift. 

— Mary Oliver

Sorrow: it’s a word that shows up in the works of many writers, myself included. As a concept, its meaning is almost as unattainable as the idea of the beloved, the divine, or death. In some cases, even penning the word elicits a strong response from critics and fellow writers, reminding us of how, in certain religious customs, to transcribe the “name” of the divine is viewed as taboo. Now, while there’s no specific rule to which no one may point and say “It’s written here that you shall not directly reference sorrow in your writing, except in cases A, B, C, D, &c.,” it’s certainly viewed as somewhat clichéd. And yet we still use the word frequently in prose and fiction. As an idea, sadness pervades so many texts, regardless of genre.

Stay with me, though. I do realize that I’m flirting with a very thin line that all artists are morose beings who wear all black and talk about nothing but how painful existence is. I’m not goth, trust me. What I am, however, is someone who finds the idea of sorrow highly intriguing. Like Mary Oliver, “It took me years to understand / that this, too, was a gift.” And, as some of you know, “The Uses of Sorrow” ranks on my “favorite poems of all time” list; not just because of how the language exerts its control over the reader’s emotions, but also because of how the form interacts with the language. The poem itself is a box, into which Oliver draws her reader, forcing us to revisit the idea of sadness time-and-time again.

When I first encountered sorrow, I was reading a collection of poems (the first that I’d freely purchased and read of my own volition) called Blue Venus by Lisa Russ Spaar. I know, I know. At this point you’re probably saying to yourself, “Would this kid just give her a rest already?” I would, except that I can’t. We writers are an obsessive bunch; and we obsess even more over those authors who awoke within ourselves something previously unknown: passion. The ability to chase after what we believe in, without fear or reservation — most of the time, without the slightest clue where we’re headed. 

A particular poem of hers has haunted me for years: “Wind.” During a turn that, frankly, I haven’t seen replicated very often in contemporary poetry, she writes “If sadness makes me god’s prisoner, so be it.” The line itself makes you feel like you’ve just had the top of your head taken completely off. After the turn, the language progresses into a state of ecstasy that, line by line, “…buffets a vexed moth above the privet hedge. // Her ragged, velvet course towards the burning lamp / …at the heart of this story.” (Spaar, 8). Knowing Lisa as I do, I know that her poetry is multi-faceted; and that we generally find a religious undertone running throughout. It’s this distinctive brand of god-hunger that I honed in on immediately and began seeking out in other writers. Through her choice of words, Lisa establishes within her speaker a great sorrow which connects, very intimately, with the divine; and, in her subtle way, finds a way to work religious terminology into a poem without risking cliché.

In “Wind,” we find it at the end of the second strophe with the declaration of “…so be it.” — a traditional English translation of “amen.” It took me a while before I was able to understand this nod towards a customary response in Christian worship. By slipping it in, Spaar reinforces a deeply held belief that god-hunger and sorrow go hand-in-hand; not because of a closeness to the divine, but because of the distance between the two. Years later I would read Louise Glück’s Vita Nova: a book that changed how I viewed sadness and our relationship to the divine.

Glück’s Vita Nova (trans. “the new life) presents a powerful narrative that is, according to the dust jacket review, “…a terrifying act of perspective…bring[ing] into resolution the smallest human hope and the vast forces that shape and thwart it.” Quite honestly, I cannot disagree. These poems stick to you, like the bedsheets on a hot summer’s night. They’re honest, insightful, and real. Through Vita Nova, Glück dances with the beloved; shows you heartache through the lens of Greek mythology; and forces the reader to dwell in a place of sadness and rebirth — a liminal space of transformation. Like Spaar, she, too, feels the sorrow which characterizes life: a sentiment that she expresses over and over, but perhaps, most clearly in the final pages through her poem “Relic."

“Relic”

Where would I be without my sorrow, 

sorrow of my beloved’s making, 

without some sign of him, this song

of all gifts the most lasting?

//

How would you like to die

while Orpheus was singing?

A long death; all the way to Dis

I heard him. 

//

Torment of earth

Torment of mortal passion — 

//

I think sometimes

too much is asked of us; 

I think sometimes

our consolations are the costliest thing.

//

All the way to Dis

I heard my husband signing, 

much as you now hear me. 

Perhaps it was better that way, 

my love fresh in my head

even at the moment of death. 

//

Not the first response — 

that was terror —

but the last. 

— Louise Glück

During the opening strophe, Glück takes us to the heart of the matter by questioning herself through the eyes of a relationship with an “other.” “Where would I be without my sorrow, / sorrow of my beloved’s making…?” For Glück, she initially links her speaker’s sadness directly to the actions (we assume) of her beloved. In this sense, the emotion felt by the speaker is earthly, mortal, and perhaps, even fleeting; however, the syntax leads the reader in another direction. Instead of choosing phrasing such as, “Where would I be without this sorrow / of my beloved’s making?” Glück chooses to end-stop the line with a comma before moving into the subordinate clause “…sorrow of my beloved’s making,” where she refrains the word. She wants us to pause, to dwell on that word, “sorrow.” Once it sinks in, then we may move forward with the rest of the poem. 

Like Spaar’s “Wind,” Glück inserts a turn early in the lines of “Relic.” In the first stanza, Glück makes us acutely aware that the speaker’s sadness results from the actions of her beloved — in this case, the husband; however, at the turn, the writer resurrects a recurring metaphor: the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. It’s a favorite of many writers and typically used to depict the great bond between a speaker and their beloved. On the surface, Glück uses the legend to almost the same purpose of her peers. The connection between Orpheus and his lover, Eurydice, represents the emotional bond between Glück’s speaker and “the husband,” or beloved. But that’s where the similarities end. For the speaker, the legend redefines itself in the lines 

Torment of earth

Torment of mortal passion — 

//

I think sometimes

too much is asked of us;

Here, we witness the anguish experienced by the self because of a betrayal: emotional, physical; and, in the same breath, the speaker introduces us to the idea that a spiritual loss may have been to blame. By weaving the “mythic” into the fabric of the speaker’s reality, Glück introduces the divine into “Relic,” thus encouraging the reader to explore her sadness in terms greater than what mortality typically affords us:  a feral longing for the beloved. We see it in the poem’s closing lines “Not the first response — / that was terror — / but the last,” whereby the speaker indicates that, when all is said and done, terror subsides into mourning, which finally declines into melancholia.

When I began this riff, I stated that sorrow was a word which appeared in the works of many writers, myself included. I also alluded to the idea that fully knowing sorrow was akin an unadulterated comprehension of the divine. I stand by my initial convictions. To borrow Jane Kenyon’s words: 

You taught me to exist without gratitude. 

You ruined my manners toward God: 

“We’re here simply to wait for death;

the pleasures of the earth are overrated.”

— Jane Kenyon

“ ‘Is it because…?’ A Self-Diagnosis ”

As a writer, I have many vices. Far too many, in fact, for me to go into too much detail here. But I’m sure that you can guess what a few of them are. Booze. Nicotine. A primal attraction to dangerous situations.  However, none of these compare to my ability to procrastinate doing the work that I know I should be doing, like writing. As my friend Jessica so aptly points out in her new blog Instead of Writing, I…, writers are notorious for their ability to put off actually writing in favor of, say, more fun things. Like trolling the internet. Or binge watching all of the episodes of House, MD on Netflix. What we’re not so great at doing is forcing ourselves to sit down with a pen and paper, or a typewriter, or a laptop to actually do what the muses have called us to do.  In this regard, I am no different than any of my peers; perhaps with the exception of my other friend Sarah, who sits down every day to work on some piece or project that she’s had going for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. The world and my imagination are, simply put, just too interesting to ignore (as many of my writer friends would agree). Now you would think such a stunning realization would fuel my creativity.  On the contrary. Often times it stifles it. I experience sensory overload on a daily basis; and yet, I struggle to put those thoughts, observations, and interactions into words. Why? Because….ooh, look at that squirrel over there! I rest my case. 

Looking back on this blog and what I’ve actually written for it, I am woefully underwhelmed with how it, a tool I created in order to break free from the irons of writers’ block, has, itself, become yet another example of how extremely skilled I have become at procrastinating the doing of things that actually matter to me. About a year and a half ago, I found myself sitting at a cafe in Miami with my adoptive mother, discussing how I couldn’t seem to produce anything worthwhile (or even anything that could even pass itself off as half-decent). She suggested that I create a blog, for no-one in particular. Just a blog, something to write about, so that I could have an outlet for my thoughts, ideas, and feelings.

“Feelings. Blegh. Those are the things you accidentally fall into when you aren’t paying attention to your surroundings. They’re what cause problems. And then you have to deal with those problems, or they become bigger problems. It’s a vicious chocolate and vanilla swirl of doom.”

However, in the time since I’ve planted my flag on this little plot of cyber-space real estate (props if you made the disjointed logical leap to a pop culture reference), I’ve come to realize that on some level she was right. We all need an outlet, no matter what we do or where our passions lie. So what is it that causes passionate people to put their passions on the back burner, so to speak? Life? The Internet? Everything? I’ll be the first to admit that George Takei’s postings do take up a lot of my time when I’m not at work; or when I’m not out and about doing “research.” And by research, I mean hanging out at a bar, drinking cheap beer and taking shots of even cheaper bourbon.

But back to the question at hand. Why do we procrastinate? See even now, I’m doing it. What I don’t lack is a routine, which, as Jessica pointed out, can sometimes become cumbersome, and in some cases, result in a case of writers’ block as impenetrable as a Greek Phalanx. What I do lack is confidence in my own ability to write something worthwhile, something substantial, or something that will one day matter. Poems that, as my mentor Lisa Russ Spaar is so fond of saying, “…are so good that you feel as though the top of your head has been taken off by the time you finish reading them."

Mine isn’t a problem of procrastinating for procrastinations sake; it’s a problem of trying so hard to write my masterpiece before it's due, that my artistic self-deprecation has been running at critical mass for so long, that it’s turned into self-destruction far before my time. I have taken Hemingway’s mantra of “Write drunk. Edit sober” and combined it with T.S. Elliot’s neurosis to create a volatile combination. Whether or not that quotation can actually be attribute to Hemingway is neither here nor there. It’s the sentiment behind it that counts.

In my own writing, I find that, more and more, I have to slip into alternate states of consciousness in order to generate material. It’s a slippery slope. And what’s even more worrisome to me is that I often feel I reached the pinnacle of my creativity during the four years that I spent as a student at U.Va. That was around the same time that I discovered the poet Tom Andrews’ lyric sequence of Unfilmable Films: poems written in the form of screenplays that increase in either absurdity or psycho-terror, until “…surely even Tim Burton would throw up his hands at this point in the script…” It’s even my belief that I have spent far too much time as a denizen of Ashbury Land — an amusement park, located on a heath somewhere in the British Isles, that features an impressively stellar array of psychotropic rides.

What happens next, you may ask? Unfortunately, I do not have an answer to that question. Either I’ll hit a major breakthrough in the not-too-distant future; or they’ll find me alone in my apartment, wearing a white dress, sexually repressed, and writing poems about how sexually repressed I am. At this point, the only detail missing from this scene is the white dress.

Which brings me back to my original question: why don’t I write more? What, exactly, is standing in my way? In many regards, it’s my own conviction that what I imagine isn’t good enough; and yet, in others, it’s a more deeply rooted question that is linked to an assumption that the scope of my obsessions (love, sex, the divine, ecstasy) are too narrow, in the sense that I focus on my experiences as a gay man; growing up in the South; coming out in a small town; and then finding myself while attending a university that, at times, can simultaneously be a bastion of liberal thought and conservative idealism.

And so I’m led to the conclusion that mine is not an issue of skill, or really a lack of self-confidence in my abilities as a writer; but rather an inability to face myself; an unwillingness to come to terms with my reality; and an aversion to indicting society on the grounds of what I see as unjust for fear of the inevitable backlash. But isn’t that the principal function of writing, of all art?

L'art pour L'art.

Die Kunst für die Kunst.

For me, what is needed is an injunction against fear, judgement, and criticism.  

Recently, I finished Louise Glück’s collection, Vita Nova. I would like to leave you with just one poem (of many), relevant to this essay:

“Earthly Terror”

I stood at the gate of a rich city.

I had everything the gods required; 

I was ready; the burdens

of preparation had been long.

And the moment was the right moment, 

the moment assigned to me. 

//

Why were you afraid?

//

The moment was the right moment; 

response must be ready.

On my lips, 

the words trembled that were 

the right words. Trembled  — 

//

and I knew that if I failed to answer

quickly enough, I would be turned away.

“The Central Virginia Gay Man’s Survival Guide”

I have lived in Virginia for the majority of my life.  This has been a mistake.  For 5 of those years, I have lived in the same area and engaged in the same activities.  This has  also been a mistake.  Central Virginia, the place where there are mountains; jalopies; yuppies who drive nice, imported cars; and hippies who only eat organic and look at you strangely when you don’t know what kombucha is.  Couples and singles scouring Whole Foods in search of a decent Pinot Noir for under $20.  It’s a terrible place to be gay unless you’re into that whole super-preppy, Vineyard Vines, Lilly Pulitzer thing.  If that’s the case, then you’ll most likely have a fantastic experience living in this part of the country.  But if that’s not your thing, then there are two options:  get the hell out while you still can; or follow this survival guide so that you may eek out some sort of respectable existence in Darth Vader Land.

1.  Don’t live in Central Virginia

Not living in  Virginia is the most certain way to survive living in Virginia.  If at all possible, just avoid living here.  Your gay ju-ju will die a little bit.  You will feel isolated, cut-off, cast-out, and shut-off from the gay world.  Because you are.  But if you must, then proceed with the remainder of this guide.  

  2.  Avoid Fredericksburg at all costs  

You know how in the Lord of the Rings when Gimli suggested that they go under the mountain in order to use the mines of Moria for safe passage; and how Gandalf said no?  That they should take the high-pass over the mountain?  Yeah....Fredericksburg is kind of like that.  Actually, it’s exactly like that.  As convinced as I am that there’s actually a Balrog lurking somewhere beneath the city,  I’m even more certain that you’d find yourself wishing for a grizzly, wizened wizard who more-than-vaguely resembles Ian McKellan to come to your rescue.  Never date anyone from there.  It’s almost as bad of a decision as living in Virginia.  In short, if you have the opportunity to never go there, TAKE IT!

http://youtu.be/ywZ5uo_3Y_A

3.  Learn to tell the difference between real men and scrubs (and the sooner, the better)

Just re-watch the TLC music video.  It doubles as an instruction manual.  The first question out of your mouth on that initial date should be “Do you have a college degree?”  If he answers yes, then we’ve got a “go-no-go” for launch.  If not, then just sashay away like Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus with your mentally challenged backup dancer-sisters.  “My name’s WINIFRED, WHAT’S YOURS?!”

4.  Bourbon Bourbon Bourbon

If there’s one thing that we can give central VA credit for, it’s the abundance of good bourbon and moonshine.  Bootlegging culture never ended here.  Drink up bitches!  No, but seriously.  The best time I ever spent in this proverbial hell-hole was the year spent with my best friend, and partner in crime, immediately following my graduation from college.  We were completely hosed at least 6 days a week.  Sometimes 8, depending.

5.  Feeding your delusions of grandeur is healthy

Although it’s extremely unlikely that the vast majority of mental health professionals would agree with me on this particular point, I’m firmly believe that inventing, maintaining, and feeding into your delusions of grandeur is actually a very necessary and healthy component of survival in this part of the country. Otherwise you’re just like everyone else. And who wants to be basic?  Not me.  Like I tell most of my clients at work, attitude is half the battle to being a fabulous bitch.  Once you’ve got the attitude, everyone will flock to you.

6.  Cultivate your ability to lie compulsively

During college my best friend and I went out.  A lot.  Like, enough that we probably both kept our local gay bar’s lights on every month.  It was crazy.  But whenever people would talk to us, I would always come up with some story about my past that was almost wholly fabricated.  Not because I had to, but because it was fun to fuck with people.  And because the backgrounds that I consistently gave were always WAY more interesting that my actual life story.  I frequently told people that I grew up in Miami.  Or that I was actually a Cuban with a skin pigmentation problem.  Or that I lived in Thailand as a young child.  Feigning accents really helps you to win in this category, so make sure that you become accomplished at it and develop a war-chest of exotic repertoires.  It doesn’t really matter what you lie about, just that you do.

7.  Make regular time to sit at a coffee shop with your Macbook Pro, sip your overpriced latte, and glare at people

As a self-loathing gay man, this exercise is paramount to your existence.  It creates the illusion of living in a city when you clearly live in the middle of Bum-Fuck-Egypt, Virginia.  You get to sit behind a computer screen and judge everybody that walks through the front door, thus providing yourself with endless hours of entertainment.  It’s especially effective when you’re going through a break-up or some other form of an emotional doldrum that has you strapped for cash and an insatiable need to reconstruct your fragile psyche.  It’s absolutely okay to think of yourself as an undiscovered André Leon Talley with your sleek hair, chic wardrobe, and perfectly pursed lips.  Just make sure that you secure a table either directly next to the front door (not recommended during the winter months), or somewhere in a corner where you have an unobstructed view of all entrances and/or exits.  For added effect, toy around with the idea (or act) or sporting a muumuu.  

TIP:  If you do decide to go out in public wearing a muumuu, make sure that you've got the requisite self-confidence (see no. 5); and be ready to defend yourself as "all-the-rage."

8.  Keep a playlist on your iPod of appropriate breakup songs

Whether it’s John Mayer’s “Gravity” or Imagine Dragons “Radioactive,” you’ll find yourself in need of appropriately depressing (yet up-lifting music) to get you through the hard times.  Lana Del Ray is one of my favorites (“Gods & Monsters” and "Body Electric").  You also may want to make sure that you have copies of the Backstreet Boys Millennium album on hand, as well as American Hi-Fi’s “Flavor of the Week.” 

Personally, I’ve found that the #DGAF attitude (trans. “hashtag don’t give a fuck”) serves all of my friends very well.  So go listen to Britney’s single “Work Bitch” or Lady Gaga’s “Donatella;” Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” and “SMS;” or Nicki Minaj’s “Va Va Voom.”  Then imagine yourself living their lifestyles.  Bottom line, just #DGAF.

9.  Squashes, of all varieties, are not sex toys (especially Butternut Squash)

It’s a Tuesday night and you’re sitting at home, alone, half-way through a reasonably priced bottle of California red wine and watching House of Cards on Netflix.  Suddenly it’s nearly midnight and you find yourself lonely, wishing that you had someone to cuddle with, or ideally, sleep with.  There’s no getting around it.  This situation is just a fact of life.  And it’s one that won’t change until you move to a city like New York, San Francisco, London, Chicago, Miami, or some other gay-mecca, to become a full-time homosexual; so you may as well deal with the cards that you've been dealt.  Here is where self-control and common decency come into play.  

Gourds are not sex toys, ladies; no matter how talented of a rectum you to purport yourself to have.  They’re just not.  Do not try this at home.  Do not become “inspired” by your Cards Against Humanity card that reads “german dungeon porn.”  

There will be a trip to the emergency room.  There will be numerous awkward stares and questions that you really just don’t want to have to answer.  Stick to the basics:  lube, porn, and masturbation.  Play Green Day’s “Longview” if you must.

10.  Don’t be afraid (regardless of your age) to take shots of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey

...because you won’t remember that night (or most of the next day) anyway.  Generally speaking, such is the function of shots.  Inviting Jäger to your party also achieves the same result.

11.  Frequent Your Local Chapter of Survivor Hour

Disclaimer:  May become detrimental to your health.  Please see owner’s manual for definition and courses of action should your “check liver light” come on. 

Whether you live in New York City, in which case this tutorial doesn’t apply and you frequent The Continental, or you call Tulsa, Oklahoma home, there’s more than likely a chill, yet awesome bar that, one night per week, has a special event where you can imbibe $1 rails for an entire hour.  I kid you not.  It exists and it’s essential to your well being.  Drinking is essential to surviving central Virginia.  Don’t be afraid to invoke your fundamental rights to be a “bitch-on-a-budget.” 

12.  Avoid sorority girls (at all costs)

Enough said.

13.  Befriend Lesbians

Given that you live in a sequestered part of the country where your pool of friends is smaller than most, having friends who aren’t interested in your dick is important.  They’re also really fucking fun to be around...at least the ones that I have met.  Lesbians will be there for you when your boyfriend dumps you.  Plus they’re excellent wing-women and are usually always down for brunch.

14.  Winter = Sweater Weather

While seasonal changes afford you the perfect opportunity to quadruple your wardrobe without fear of judgement (i.e. parents/co-workers who insist that food is more important than fashion), no season quite compares the the transition from fall into winter.  Those cold months are the apex of fashion for gay men.  Not only do you get to prance around in Chelsea boots and woolen frock coats pretending to be Nigel, but it’s the one time of the year when it’s completely acceptable to assume the identity of a morose asshole who loathes the very existence of color.  Accessorize, accessorize, accessorize!

15.  “She eats food.  What sort of person eats food?  She is obviously not fashion enough.”  

The above quotation was taken from a post in Karl Lagerfeld’s Guide to Life called “People, Places, and Coco.”  Aside from being hilarious in and of itself, the blogger’s statement also perfectly sums up my attitude towards living in central Virginia.  Never, under any circumstances, miss out on your opportunity to be a holier-than-thou bitch.  Allow me to illustrate. 

   "10 Things You Should Probably Never Say to a Poet"

  So after an unbearably long series of extremely bad dates, I’ve decided to write this helpful guide for the over-enthusiastic individual who thinks that they’re brave enough to have a conversation with a poet.  Please pay attention.  These tips may just save your life and/or your ego.  But they’re the same thing for you, aren’t they?  Thanks goes to the light of my life and partner-in-crime, Zoë Artime Worrell, for sharing many of these same experiences with me and for helping me to continually re-validate my assumption that I’m always right.

DISCLAIMER: If you feel personally attacked or belittled, I’m sorry; but I did, in fact, mean it that way.  It is, however, entirely possible that I’ve inadvertently become a bitter old queen well before my time.

1.  “OMG, you’re a poet?!  Would you/will you write a poem about me?  I’d love to be in your poem!”

No.  No, you wouldn’t.  And no, I will not write a poem about you.  In fact, by the time that I do write a poem about you, you probably wouldn’t want to read it.  Poetry isn’t all sentimental diarrhea that some misunderstood young adult just crapped onto a page and called “art.”

2.  “You like Emily Dickinson?  OMG, me too!  Her pastoral imagery and view on nature is so uplifting!”  

(Silence.  Crickets Chirping.)  In the time that it’s taken me to actually process your naïvety, I could have written a poem about how fucking retarded you are.  Dickinson is not a happy poet.  You, my friend, and I say this with love, are DELUSIONAL.  Anyone with an Intelligence Quotient above .01 can tell that she’s not happy.  Does the phrase “the most sexually repressed woman in history” mean anything to you?  And yes, I did  actually un-abbreviate IQ for you; because I’m not actually convinced that you know what it stands for.  Now while we’re on the subject, would all of you high-school graduates and psychotically upbeat little twerps please quit reciting Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” during celebratory events (i.e. valedictory exercises, graduations, and weddings for Christ’s sake)?  The man is talking about killing himself.  Suicide.  As for Dickinson, read the “Fascicle 15” and then get back to me on how “happy and upbeat of a poet” Dickinson really is.  

3.  “Robert Frost is the greatest American poet ever to live.  I just love how inspired his work is.”  

See above comments on your mental health.  Delusional.  But then again, I guess if you’d lost your father to tuberculosis at the age of 11 and had been left with $8 to your family’s name; and had had four of your six children die or commit suicide, you would be “inspired,” too.  Let’s not forget that Frost was the son of an alcoholic and that his mother was severely depressed.  Oh, and in 1920, he was forced to commit his sister to a mental hospital, where she died 9 years later.  That’s one chummy bloke in my book.  That being said, he is brilliant and I do enjoy his work. 

4.  “Ginsberg was a God among men.”

While I think that Ginsberg would definitely have agreed with your, how shall we say, rapier analysis of his own self-worth in the world (and while I may tend to agree, however begrudgingly, with you on this point), let’s just pause for a moment.  This man was high as a kite for most of his young-adult life. That's the only thing that you really need to know about this angelheaded hipster.  Ginsberg is difficult, in general; so let’s just stop while you’re behind.

  5.  “Sylvia Plath has got to be one of my favorite poets.  She showed me real beauty in the world.”

Yeah, I bet.  You and about a million other people who have egregiously mis-interpreted her work for decades.  Beauty.  Really?  Because the only thing that she showed me was the inside of a gas oven as she turned her head into a soufflé.  Don’t get me wrong.  I have tremendous respect for the work that Plath produced and the groundwork she laid for confessional poetry.  In fact I return to her work time and again.  But shit, really?

6.  “My favorite movement in the history of poetry is definitely the romantic period.”

It’s true.  I’ll give you that one.   Wordsworth, Blake, Lord Byron, and Keats were some down ass bitches.  

7.  “My life was changed by the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson.”

...said no-one, ever.  You may as well gouge your eyes our with a spork, because you don’t deserve to live.  Just because some frumpy female British monarch named him Poet Laureate for the empire doesn’t mean he was good at it.  In fact it fails the mutually inclusive test.

8.  “A manuscript for a writing contest?  That sounds really creative.  What is it about, if I may ask?”

Why yes, it is really creative: hence the nature of art. Well done!  You’re a regular, bonafide Sherlock Holmes, you are.  I can’t believe you just asked me what my manuscript was about.  That’s almost as bad as you asking me to write you a poem.  But since you asked, I'll provide an answer: let me get back to you on that one when I fucking know what my manuscript is actually about; cause heaven knows I don’t have a god-dammed clue.  It's not a joke; I really have no idea what the hell I’m writing about anymore.

9. Situation: [After misguidedly showing someone your work] “These are so great.  You’re really gifted!  Where do you get your inspiration from?”

Your face.  I honestly have no idea.  Why don’t you ask the dead guy over there in the gutter?

10.  Situation: [And, if I still haven’t learned my lesson, and have again mistakenly shown my work to other non-writers, and if this individual actually possesses the clarity of thought and adeptness required to formulate a cohesive thought, my all-time favorite] 

“You write about sex and fucking and the darkness that follows, like, a lot.  Have you ever tried [insert incomprehensibly lewd sexual act here]?”

    In Response to “Levenson: the humanities change lives” by U.Va. Prof. Michael Levenson as featured in the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

-- Dylan Thomas

“The humanities will not go quietly.  They won’t disappear unless and until we agree to be machines instead of persons.” writes U.Va. Professor Michael Levenson in a recently published article to the Richmond Times-Dispatch blog.  In his article, line after line, Levenson makes numerous, very good points about the significance of obtaining a liberal-arts education -- especially pertaining to undergraduate studies in the humanities.  Originally I had planned to write about what I like to refer to as “gem” poems: or micro-poems.  They are the small, but mighty champions of versified language.  They’re the ones which, while seemingly inconsequential, will make you feel like you’ve had the top of your head blown off after reading them.  Emily Dickinson, early Charles Wright, the fragments of Sappho -- all were masterful crafters of the gem poem.  But that’s not what I would like to focus on today.  Today I want to discuss the future of the humanities in American higher education.     

After having spent four years (between 2007-2011) as an undergraduate student, several issues came to the table regarding the value proposition of an undergraduate degree -- especially for those students who made the decision to study the humanities and/or obtain a liberal-arts education.  Cost was chief amongst them.  How much will I have to pay; how much debt will I incur; and how long will it take for me to pay back the cost of that education?  Second was the prospect of getting a job within three months of graduation.  To dovetail off of the second question “am I really qualified for this position or do I need to spend another several thousand dollars to obtain a graduate degree before I can even really be considered for a job?”  There are many, many more questions floating around the debate about the humanities and the liberal arts in 21st century America.  Yet when all is said and done, when the piper has been paid, it comes down to affordability and the value proposition that comes along with that “piece of paper” -- even more-so now that I’m very seriously considering going back to get my Master of Fine Arts in Poetry Writing.  

As poorly thought through as my decision to get my BFA seemed to my parents, even more people now ask me “what on earth are you going to do with another art degree?”  Now that my parents have come around to the idea of me having earned an art degree, they’re totally encouraging of my desire to go back to school for it.  Others, not so much.  So why do people my age keep going back for degrees which a large portion of society deems as “useless?”  Why do we pursue our passions instead of plugging ourselves into the Matrix?  The answer is quite simple really; and Levenson articulates is very eloquently “...we also need to comprehend the significance of what we make [.]”  Spot on Mr. Kitty (aka Michael Levenson).  Spot on.  And why do I agree with him?  Because I’ve been there.  I’ve seen it happen.  I’ve literally been the change and watched the humanities change lives.  Now let me tell you why...

For as far back as I can remember, my mother's father stressed the importance of getting an education.  When his children came into their pre-college years, he basically told them that they were going to university and that they didn’t have a choice.  The same happened with me.  I was told that I was going, whether I wanted to or not; and that I was going to finish in four years, thus earning my undergraduate degree. 

My mother’s siblings took it one step further: they each set their minds to completing graduate level coursework, thereby taking their master’s.  Yet here’s the interesting thing about how our family’s attitude towards education worked: each of us was made to find a way to pay for our studies and we were told that we had to obtain a liberal arts education, even if we focused (as some have) in the hard sciences or engineering.  It was essential for us to receive that well-rounded, very pan-functional degree that would quite literally allow us to enter whatever field we wanted and do almost anything.  My mother settled on special education and then went back for her Master of Reading.  Her brother followed his passions in History through to the graduate level.  Another brother has completed his doctoral work; and yet another took his undergraduate political science degree and went on to earn a Master of Business Administration.  Every one of her 5 siblings received a well-rounded, liberal-arts education (regardless of degree or major); and each one of them has gone on to become very successful in their chosen careers.  Would they have achieved this same level of success had they pigeon-holed their selves into technical degrees or commerce educations?  Likely not.  

The value of a liberal arts education comes not from an ability to perform transactional/operational tasks, but in the ability to think; the ability to reason; the capability to redact and synthesize information from multiple sources into a coherent product.  Liberal-arts majors are often, when given the chance, more capable employees and generally contribute in more significant and lasting ways than those who studied a trade or the technical.  Now don’t get me wrong, there’s definitely a huge market for STEM students (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics).  But there’s also a need for people who know how to think and how to write.  As Levenson so poignantly states, “We share the cause of free inquiry that must follow its path to understanding, wherever it leads.” 

The astounding thing about current arguments against the continuation of funding for the humanities is it’s shortsightedness and narrow-mindedness.  Depending on which historian you talk to, it wasn’t but about 400 years ago that mankind entered into the Age of Reason.  It was this period of enlightenment that allowed us an opportunity to emancipate ourselves from the Dark Ages and enter into a period of intensive humanitarian intellectual exploration.  Poets, philosophers, scientists, mathematicians.  Astronomers, engineers, thinkers, botanists.  Chemists.  Alchemists.  Biologists.  Nearly every great mind of the Enlightenment wore multiple hats and performed work across numerous fields.  They weren’t concerned as much with a specialty as they were were understanding the nature of the universe.  It was because of our natural curiosity, our drive to observe and to learn, that we freed ourselves from the shackles of  religiosity.  What the predominant institution of the time said wasn’t good enough.  Something wasn’t adding up.  And so we sought the truth.  We bounced ideas from person to person, peer to peer, and mentor to mentee.  

My own experience as a student of the arts and humanities has been very similar to a personal awakening.  When I came to school, I knew nothing.  All was dark, opaque, clouded.  Four years later and many hours spent reading into the deep watches of the night, I am transformed.  Like a phoenix, I consumed myself and arose into a new body, a new flight.  In my opinion it’s the constant rebirth of the individual that continues to drive the humanities.  As students of this discipline there is nothing that can quell our thirst for knowledge or reason.  We search for what we don’t understand and seek to master it: for we believe in what Jefferson referred to as “...the illimitable freedom of the human mind.”

If you don’t believe me, then consider my own experience as an undergraduate student.  When I arrived on-Grounds for the first time, I completely and wholeheartedly believed that I would enter the field of geology; however, because of the courses that I was made to take during my first and second year, I discovered within myself an entirely new passion: a completely un-considered vocation.  My life was most definitely changed by the humanities.  It became the battle ground for rapier-witted literature, philosophy, history, and anthropology professors.  Ultimately one won out: the study of literature.  

As the continued stress of lean financial times continues to weigh on our shoulders, and as more and more college graduates leave their campuses with the intention of entering the workforce, I fear that society will continue an increased anti-humanities rhetoric; that, politicians bent solely on retaining their cushioned seat in the General Assembly, will continue to spew misinformation and propaganda.  I fear that more and more the media outlets will continue to depict the humanities in a negative light; and that universities will begin viewing departments as profitable versus non-profitable. 

        As an undergraduate I took many creative writing seminars.  Because my major focused on the craft of poetry writing, I frequently found myself in discussions about the music of language: about how accent and etymology would often come into direct conflict with one another, yet somehow generate polynomial meanings.  In particular, one situation comes to mind.  

During one of these seminars we had just this discussion with the professor.  We talked about how where words came from and how they operated under the constraints placed on them through poetic language.  Our conversation focused on the transitive English verb “to consider.”  By all accounts, a very common word.     Merriam Webster defines “to consider”:  

to think about carefully: as 1a) to think of especially with regard to taking some action; 1b) to take into account; 2) to regard or treat in an alternative or kindly way; 3) to gave on steadily or reflectively; 4) to come to judge or classify.

This definition is seemingly well written.  It covers all of the bases that we would expect from a mainstream dictionary.  It provides practical applications for language.  And after all, isn’t practical application the prime directive of language?  But on another level, the modern definition overlooks a greater, more historical implication.  Webster offers a brief etymological explanation.  From it we learn that the present form of this word arrived in our lexicon from Middle English.  It was also present in Anglo-French  as considerer and in Latin as considerare (meaning to observe, think about).  The further that we delve into the Latin, we see that to consider is comprised of com- + sider- (from sidus (or heavenly body). By claiming to consider, we engage in each of those functions: observation, thought, dwell, study...The list of synonymous adjectives could continue endlessly.  However, according to its latinate origins, we’re not just studying, observing, and contemplating, we also invoke the older, much more mystical meaning.  When we consider something, anything, then we become enraptured with it, its revolutions, its cycles...down to every atom that causes it to tick.  

In a language that quite literally has a half-million official headwords and, according a joint Harvard/Google study conducted in 2010, contains more than 1 million vocabulary words, why would I focus on this one particular verb?  Why consider?  That is, itself, the question.  I recall discovering the layers of meaning with this word during my final year.  To be frank: it knocked me on my ass.  

So why consider.  In my experience, language represents more than just words on a page or definitions hand-copied onto mold-green composition paper during grade school.  It’s more than frenzied analyses written by over-caffeinated university students.   Language, regardless of genre or mode, is language.  When crafted; when bent; when broken; when constrained; and forced into syntactical structures becomes its own genesis device: voices, meaning, and music.  As a poet I am particularly interested in the music of language.  Can you have one without the other?  From where I stand, language and music are one and the same.  The question that I find particularly interesting is whether or not one can exist without the other.  As two out of the three oldest art forms, music and poetry are inherently linked.  When you get right down to it, the craft that musicians and poets both practice is creating meaning out of sounds -- regardless of which language(s) you may know.

For the past few weeks I have started re-visiting my collection of German pop-music.  I can’t tell you the number of times that I have listened to the same album over and over.  Those of you who know me know that I began taking German as a foreign language during my first year at college and that I left the country for a term abroad.  It was during this time that I really became acquainted with another language.  As I’ve returned to those albums, I’ve found that the connection that I feel to the language and to the music is secondary.  What I’ve experienced is the opposite of how we think about processing language.  For me the meaning isn’t found in the act of complete comprehension but, rather, in the absence of fluency.  It’s in the space between words, tones, and beats -- in those fleeting moments of silence -- that the most extant language abides.  

One of my favorite modern authors, Christian Bök, wrote a collection of poems called Eunoia.  In this collection, Bök took each vowel in the English language and composed a chapter per vowel.  Quite literally, each chapter features poems written using only words that contain that specific vowel, e.g. Chapter A uses words where the only vowel is A.  Eunoia, which means “beautiful thought” and is the shortest word in the English language to contain all five vowels, is (as Bök) states 

....a Sisyphean spectacle of its labor, willfully crippling its language in order to show that, even under such improbable conditions of duress, language can still express an uncanny, if not sublime, thought.

        In order to create that sublime thought, the author employed a series of obstructions that served as catalyst for his creative project.  Yet what Bök achieved is truly amazing.  He has taken seemingly random combinations of words and imbued them with meaning.  He made order from chaos.  Is Bök god?  Probably not; however, he did manage to mix oil and vinegar together in order to produce something entirely other from the original.  Now what does this all have to do with language as music and vice versa?  From Eunoia we see that a word’s canonical meaning is capable of, under the right circumstances, morphing into something wholly new.  

        When we consider that words have meanings and syllables and accents and tones, then yes, it’s quite obvious that music and language are clearly linked.  But when used unconventionally (structure, &c.), language is capable of diffusing and adapting itself in order to codify an artist’s desired expression.  Yes there are meters and everything else that goes into measuring versified language; but perhaps it’s not the institutional measures that really matter; but, rather, what you can’t empirically record that defines the relationship between language and music.  Almost any poet that you talk to will tell you that poetry is a broken language, both aurally and visually.  After all, isn’t it the jagged, right-hand margin which makes it verse?.  Quite the contrary, actually.  Poetry, its language and music, are more than broken lines and metered strophes.  It’s the in-between, the intangible, the silence, and the pause that is the genesis of meaning.  In closing, I would like to leave you with these words from Emily Dickinson.  Through her fascicle 15(No. 427, Franklin ed.), she reminds us of just this.

Sunset at Night - is natural -

But Sunset on the Dawn 

Reverses Nature - Master -

So Midnight’s - due - at Noon 

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Ever thine, 

ever mine, 

ever ours, 

A few weeks ago my writing mentor told me that not writing was just as crucial to the writing process as writing daily was.  For the past several months I haven't known what to make of the fact that I seem to be at a complete standstill with my own creativity.  I wouldn't say that I have writers block, per se.  It's more like there isn't a muse there at all. 

Our discussion began during an impromptu visit to my old stomping grounds in Charlottesville, where I'd come up for a few job-related meetings and to re-connect with old friends.  I can remember her telling me that during the several years when she lived in Texas, she found herself completely handicapped when it came to a pen and paper.  In fact the only words that she was able to scratch out were, in her words, "...mediocre fictions that John Casey graciously humored me by reading..."  As I seem to be continually stalled with my own attempts to move this old hooptie from neutral into drive, I can't help but wonder was she right?  Sure, I'm able to put out blog posts when I find the motivation to sit down in front of a computer screen; and yes, I'm able to draft diary entries chronicling my whereabouts on any given day.  And yes, I've found that I'm able to revise the pages upon pages of old work that I have floating around as scraps of data on my hard drive and USB drives.  But where is the new work?  Where's the work that will enable me to refocus in order to create a portfolio that will gain my admission in a graduate creative writing program?  

I've always thought, and for the most part experienced, that the writing process was continuous -- that when you finished a project you would realize that you'd already started working on another.  Well, since the last major project that I immersed myself in was constructing my manuscript as part of my fourth year capstone class, I'm remiss to think that this is actually the case.  With the exception of a few gems here and there, or the occasional fragment that re-surfaces, there hasn't been the smallest iota of usable material to come through my mind since the Spring of 2011.  Now that's a VERY long time for someone accustomed to cranking out 2 to 3 poems a week for 3 years.  

At this point I feel like Carrie Bradshaw in "Unoriginal Sin."  I've got so much nothing to write about that, to quote the illustrious Bradshaw, "Last night, I actually started writing about my sock drawer.  Men as socks.  'Socks and the City.'"  Now while the likelihood of me actually writing about men as socks is mostly remote, I'm not precluding the possibility of it either.  The point is that I'm looking so hard for something, anything, to write about that I'm considering the most absurd angles you could possibly think of.  

Maybe she's right, though, my mentor.  Perhaps the times that we can't seem to find anything to write about are the most important times during our writing careers.  It forces us into an almost constant state of creativity, which as any artist knows, almost always means that we're voraciously consuming creative mediums in search of that spark: the genesis moment when everything that we've been struggling with during the lull ignites and we can't stop ourselves.