Why a Poet?

Why A Poet?

There is a passage in Kierkegaard which I first read as a teenager. In it, the philosopher says there are two voices:

The first commands the second – Write! 

The second voice (not questioning the imperative), responds by asking – For whom? 

The first voice answers – For the dead whom thou didst love. 

Again, the second voice doesn’t question it, instead it asks – Will they read me? 

The first voice answers – Aye, for they return as posterity.

I don't recall a booming voice from the heavens commanding me to write. Indeed, there is nothing romantic whatsoever in the ‘calling’ of a writer. I don't write poems to put bread on the table: Yet, as everyone who fancies himself an artist in a garret knows, man does not live by bread alone. And, although I may die of starvation for believing this, I'll never give up writing.

Most writers, but certainly all poets, are mildly schizophrenic. The two voices above, for example, are really one. The rest of the world doesn’t care whether you write or not. It's a decision you make for yourself. But once you begins, it doesn't take long to realize that it is the least rewarding vocation in the world. For all the effort it requires to write a decent poem, the best return is to have it published in a magazine or journal no one reads. So why not give up? Especially since even the greatest poets were miserable, insecure wretches. I like to think Shakespeare is describing the poet’s plight here:

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
   I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
   And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
   Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
   With what I most enjoy contented least:                 (My Italics)
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
   Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
   From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
   That then I scorn to change my state with kings.  

The line in italics could be the poet’s mantra. But what lifted his spirit upwards like the lark? Was it his muse? His patron/lover? Something always lifts the poet out of the mire and it's usually the act of writing itself, especially when it is going well. 

To improve as a poet, it is necessary not only to regard one’s contemporaries (especially in an un-poetic age, like ours, when great poets are few and the truly great are dead) but to learn from the immortals too. Few poets have the necessary confidence and ambition to succeed in a world that considers poetry crass, and poets themselves to be hippies and loafers.

The serious poet writes because he must. He will sacrifice all the common amenities - a house, a regular income, food - in order to succeed as a writer; and, when he gets discouraged, will remember Keats' words: 'I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest!' Despite this overweening arrogance, he may still develop a readership, if he's good enough. But all poets, even the best, are offered for their penance a blessing and a curse: admiration and poverty. 

I clearly remember the daas the following: y I decided I could be nothing else except a poet. I was thirteen. My English teacher, Brother Lawrence, dragged to the front of the class to read a poem by Emily Dickinson as punishment for delinquency. The poem I read was the following:


My life had stood -- a Loaded Gun -- 
In Corners -- till a Day
The Owner passed -- identified --
And carried me away --

And now We roam the Sovereign Woods --
And now We hunt the Doe --
And every time I speak for Him --
The Mountains straight reply --

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow --
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through --


And when at Night -- Our good Day done --
I guard My Master's Head --
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's 
Deep Pillow -- to have shared --


To foe of His -- I'm deadly foe --
None stir the second time --
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye --
Or an emphatic Thumb --


Though I than He -- May longer live
He longer must -- than I --
For I have but the power to kill,
Without -- the power to die --


I had read poetry before, of course, without being enraptured by it. That year, we were learning about the WWI poets, and I especially liked Wilfred Owen. I also remember being moved by Heaney's poem 'Mid Term Break' which everyone in Ireland learns at school. But I had never read anything like this. I didn't understand it fully, but there was something about the arrangement of words that caused in me an overwhelming emotional response. I could scarcely conceal it from the class. I think the modulations in my voice as I read the last verse were mistaken for embarrassment. The truth is, after reading the first line, the room had emptied of everyone but me. 


As I walked back to my desk some of the boys made comments on my reading ('HaHa, sickener for ye, ye faggot!'). Others even offered some constructive criticism ('Ye read it wrong, ye dozy bollox!'). I expected this, of course. I had been part of that chorus the week before when another boy suffered the same humiliation. I've always wondered why Brother Lawrence used public readings of poetry as a form of punishment. He was an English teacher after all. I think he found it amusing to watch a semi-literate scamp struggling to enunciate the words. I think my reading went okay but the experience conditioned me to have an aversion to reading poetry aloud, except when I'm alone.