A Poet's Manifesto

Colleen Abel, in the Ploughshares online Reading site, posted an article “The Poet’s Manifesto: Three Ars Poeticas” (ars poetica is Latin for “the art of poetry” and is a phrase taken from the ancient Roman lyric poet, Horace). She talks about how art exhibits will usually include and “Artist Statement.” When my daughter set out in the art world with her own exhibits and curating some art shows in town, I became aware of those artist statements myself.

Abel compares the ars poetica to the artist statement, and shares three different poems in which each poet presents their own ars poetica.  I like the concept of “artist statement” being applied to the poetic works, but I like even more the phrase in the title of Abel’s essay: “the poet’s manifesto.”

As I read her essay, I was reminded of another ars poetica, this one by Robert Graves in his short story, “The Shout.” Graves stated that he wrote it to illustrate how disruptive poetry can be to the poet’s domestic life. I first came across the story when I found Graves’ book, Occupation Writer, in a used book shop in Sausalito, California. “The Shout” was one of the stories in that volume, and a film adaptation was done in 1978 starring John Hurt, Alan Bates and Susanna York. The story depicts a man whose life is completely disrupted by a visitor. The visitor was an Englishman who had learned some shamanic practices from an Australian Aborigine.* 

Another thing I was reminded of was my own ars poetica that I wrote in 1980. “Sonnet Concerning Poetic Vision,” was one of my early poems written shortly after I began to take the poetic endeavor seriously. It was among the poems I read at my very first public poetry reading which some friends and I organized at a coffee shop in San Francisco. After that period, I put the poem away and have not read it in any of my public readings since.

I was prompted to revisit the poem after reading Colleen Abel’s essay, realizing that I had my own artist statement, my own poet’s manifesto, and my own ars poetica written at the outset of my poetic endeavors. Upon reading it again, I was not embarrassed (you know how we writers can be when we go back and re-read our early works). I was even pleased with the prescience in declaring that in spite of the travail, poetry instills “wonderment to guide the soul along an unsure path.” In the years that have ensued, I can say that poetry has continued to be a wondrous guide along an unsure path. 

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*See also my essay, “Dylan Thomas and Hank Williams: They Shared Their Art and Died Young.”



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Dylan Thomas and Hank Williams: They Shared Their Art and Died Young

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels…”

~ St. Paul (II Corinthians 4:7)

Statue of the poet Dylam Thomas
in Swansea, Wales

Life hurls herself in all of her fullness, as is her wont, though most cast a blind eye and a deaf ear. Some cannot help seeing and hearing.  The surpassing greatness of the power of life flows in excess. The poets and seers are astounded and try their best to tell the wonders, the beauty, and the heartache of dancing within the realm of creation.

Dylan Thomas and Hank Williams both had to write it. One told it, and one sang it, but her essence was so strong that the seers began to temper the onslaught of vision with alcohol. Some peopple drink to numb the pain, others drink to quiet the vision. Still others drink when there is no other one to accompany them on their visionary road.

Memorial statue of Hank Williams
Montgomery Alabama, USA

In another time, they would have been taken into the community to be honored and protected in their shamanic states. They would have been allowed a safe place to tell their visions and sing their songs. Ritual and dance would have marked the comings and goings of Life’s emanations into the human community. The shaman would have been heard, then would have been assisted in his return to everyday life. Permission for vision and permission for cooling toward the ordinary would have been granted.

Today, our shamans enter without training or forewarning. Our humanity, being a few steps removed from the natural rhythms of life, still requires a word of Life. We are ever more bereft of that breath of Spirit. The poet comes of age who is by nature receptive to the Word of Life and Her spirit breath. Beauty of life, hunger of longing, and nearness of death become the ever present company of the poet. The poet must speak whether we hear or not.

Robert Graves wrote a fascinating short story, “The Shout.” It was about a mysterious Englishman, a patient at a mental asylum, who made himself a guest in the house of a young musician and his wife. He claimed to have lived among the Australian Aborigine and had learned secrets of the soul and of nature. He had learned a shout which when vocalized could bring madness and even death to all within hearing range.  He had an unusual control over the man and his wife during his visit. Whether it was all dream, fantasy, or reality, the reader cannot quite be sure.  Graves stated later that the story was an allegory about the disruption that poetry brings to family life.

Dylan and Hank drank themselves to an early grave. If the alcohol had not killed them, the poetry might have. Yet their words and songs remain as a marvel of talent and beauty. The living can calmly remark how amazing it was that so much work came from such a short life.  Their lives and deaths are a testament of how we hold such a vast treasure within ordinary “earthen vessels.” It is as though we are not completely wired to handle the full current of life’s reality.  And yet, Life continues to beckon. Those who have ears to hear celebrate its beauty and wonder. Most of us take that wonder in small doses: a visit to the symphony, a hike in the woods, an appreciation of a sunset, or a favorite hymn or poem taken in from time to time.  We still have shamans and poets walking among us, declaring to us the promise of life.  Sometimes we hear them; sometimes we come too late in our appreciation of their vision.

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