Tag Archives: Archibald MacLeish

A Texas “Outlaw” Poet Demonstrates Semiotics

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In the six years that “literarylew” has existed, I’ve explored poetry at great depth.  A lot of my exploration has been in the area of semiotics, that unconscious domain where instincts and external demands of society encounter each other and an identity amenable to symbolic participation in the world is created.  If this identity is too well-endowed with instinctual energy, psychosis could emerge in the extreme.  If “external demands” rule the day, then at an extreme linear thinking will prevail one will find comfort in the world that W. H. Auden described as that of, “a logical lunatic.”  The goal is for both dimensions of human experience to freely interact with instinctual energy finding expression in socially acceptable terms.

But the poet has that “id”-stinctual energy working with more intensity than those of us who live a more prosaic life.  With the poet, words cavort about in the subterranean regions of the heart, making it challenging to, “buckle his distempered “swollen” heart within the belt of rule….as Shakespeare put it.  The energy of instinctual energy that would threaten dissolution is harnessed by the poet’s capacity to use words to bind that energy and to use words creatively. At the conclusion I will include a poem by Archibald MacLeish who so beautifully describes the meshing of what William James called the, “blooming, buzzing, confusing world of sense experience” with words.)

However, I first would like to introduce you to my most recent blog subscriber, a Texas “outlaw” poet, Jeff Callaway, whose life story and poetry so beautifully illustrates the struggle of one poet in “binding” the energy of his heart and life.  This poem is a hodgepodge of imagery, often lacking “sense” other than to one who has a heart for poetry and will intuit and feel a whole lot of “sense” by giving it a close, attentive reading.  Here I quote the initial stanza of this raucous and often bawdy poem which clearly reveals this man’s energy bursting at the seams:

the greatest poems
are never written down
but lonely and forgotten
before a pen can be found
the greatest poems never find the ink
in the time it takes you to think
slowly with time they fade
and face the guillotine
of jilted poems and unrequited lovers
or glued to my own vague memory
of what could’ve been
if only i’d had a pen
and the recollection to keep repeating
what it was i was trying to say…

For the whole of this poem, check out this link:  https://texasoutlawpoet.com/2018/02/16/the-greatest-poems-of-all-by-jeff-callaway-texas-outlaw-poet-2/

“Words in Time,” by Archibald MacLeisch:

Bewildered with the broken tongue
of wakened angels in our sleep
then lost the music that was sung
and lost the light time cannot keep!

There is a moment when we lie
Bewildered, wakened out of sleep,
when light and sound and all reply:
that moment time must tame and keep.

That moment like a flight of birds
flung from the branches where they sleep,
the poet with a beat of words
flings into time for time to keep.

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Here is a list of my blogs.  I invite you to check out the other two sometime.

https://anerrantbaptistpreacher.wordpress.com/

https://literarylew.wordpress.com/

https://theonlytruthinpolitics.wordpress.com/

Poetry Captures Subjective Experience

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Years ago I heard a poet answer the question, “How does one make a poem?”  with, “Grab a word and pull on it.”  I loved that answer because though a fledgling with poetry I knew that poetry involved a friction, a tension, a tearing of the soul.  Or, in the words of T. S. Eliot,

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.
T. S. Eliot – “Burnt Norton” (1935)

This cacophony of sense experience is something that most of us never experience, self included, for though I love poetry I lack the humility required for the poetry gods to speak through me.  But a poet can “wrestle with the gods” in the depths of his/her heart and manage to wrap words around this subjective turmoil, a process captured so beautifully by the following words from Archibald MacLeish.

Bewildered with the broken tongue
of wakened angels in our sleep
then lost the music that was sung
and lost the light time cannot keep!
There is a moment when we lie
Bewildered, wakened out of sleep,
when light and sound and all reply:
that moment time must tame and keep.
That moment like a flight of birds
flung from the branches where they sleep,
the poet with a beat of words
flings into time for time to keep.

I know several poets who are very talented and one who has the unique ability of being able to, “with a beat of words fling into time” a powerful subjective experience.  Her work is very similar to that of William Wordsworth described in the NYRB article that I posted here in the past couple of days.

But my main point here is to provide a marvelous link to show this linguistic process in action with the comedic brilliance of Trevor Noah in a stand-up routine several years ago.  His point is humor, and the humor is outstanding, but note how he plays with words and demonstrates how fluid they actually are though most of us spend our lives in the rigidly structured banality of everyday language. (You might have to copy and paste into your browser; go to 5:29 mark)

(https://www.google.com/webhp?source=search_app#q=trevor+noah+know+what+i+mean&*)

My Paean to “Mindfulness” in the Blog-o-sphere!

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I love meeting “mind” and will share a Robert Frost poem on the matter. And by “mind” I don’t mean the routine, mechanized palaver, the “well-worn words and ready phrases that build comfortable walls against the wilderness” (Conrad Aiken) but a “discerning” mind, one that is quickened by what I like to call the “Spirit of God”, one that is wry and witty, one that can “rock ‘n roll”, is even sarcastic on occasion and certainly ironic, one that can trot out an occasional “word fitly spoken”, and to sum it up, one that is “present”. And every time I stumble upon one of these “minds” I am given pause and say to myself, “Hey, let’s check this fellow (or fellow-ess) out! Somebody is home!” And this occasionally happens even with a five year old student. And even with my beloved dachshunds, Ludwig and Elsa, I often get the distinct impression that “Somebody is present here”.  (But these doggies are going to have to hurry up and develop more fore brain capacity  before they can offer me subtlety!)

Emily Dickinson described “a mind too near itself to see itself distinctly.” She was describing a mind that lacks these qualities, a mind too self-absorbed for the person to see beyond the end of his/her nose….or should I say “knows”? This self-absorbed mind lacks self-reflection without which there is no awareness.

And I have met many of these aforementioned “mindful” people and try to make sure I circulate in a circle where they are apt to be found. And I read literature by writers who are gifted with this quality. Movies and even television-shows can offer this god-given perspective if one is discriminating about his/her choices.

And in the past two years I have discovered that the blog-o-sphere is full of men and women who have this “Presence” and share from it daily. To you, my dear friends, I today doff my hat and thank you for all you have added to my life and continued to do so daily. You know who you are. You are a gift to me but also to your family, friends, and community. What I like to call “The Spirit of God” vibrates in your heart and therefore “winds of thought blow magniloquent meanings betwixt me and thee.” (Archibald MacLeish)

A CONSIDERABLE SPECK
By Robert Frost

A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink,
When something strange about it made me think.
This was no dust spike by my breathing blown,
But unmistakenly a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt—
With loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn’t want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic, regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

I have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise.
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.

Pupplies and Flowers all Over the Place

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It was decades ago when a young tyke’s mother shared these words that her son had just recently spun together. I was just stunned as the image was so compelling and this was made even more so by the fact that the lad was no more than three or four years old at most.

This child’s world was still pristine and on a particular morning he had awakened to an intense awareness of the world’s beauty, later describing it to his mother as “puppies and flowers all over the place.” Now when I heard these words, I had long-since been jaded into submission by my culture but these words were evocative, they were “words fitly spoken” and they reached into my heart. They still do today and I have a hunch they will do the same with some of my readers.

I can faintly recall some of that pristine beauty of the world but only faintly. Very faintly. I think that very early on I had that beauty taken from me; or, to be honest, I willingly abdicated and opted to imbibe of the “well-words and ready phrases that built comfortable walls against the wilderness” that my world offered. It is always easier to do that than to maintain one’s reality, stick to an inherent virtue, and be true to one ’s self.

And look what that kid was doing that morning. He was having an intense, subjective moment and he was able to capture it and put it into words. That was a poetic moment. And here I want to share Archibald MacLeish’s description of poetic moments like that:

WORDS IN TIME

Bewildered with the broken tongue
of wakened angels in our sleep
then lost the music that was sung
and lost the light time cannot keep!
There is a moment when we lie
Bewildered, wakened out of sleep,
when light and sound and all reply:
that moment time must tame and keep.
That moment like a flight of birds
flung from the branches where they sleep,
the poet with a beat of words
flings into time for time to keep.

 

The Ephemeral Nature of Words

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The beauty of words stems largely from their ephemeral nature. Conrad Aiken described words as “these squeaks of ours”. Poets spend their life contriving meaning out of these “squeaks”, a process which T. S. Eliot described as, “wrestling with words and meanings.

The poet is very aware of this ephemerality of language. They know firsthand how flimsy the conjunction between a simple mere sound…a “word”…and subjective experience can be; and always is when any particular word is first formed. Carl Sandburg described this as “the moment of doom when the word is formed.” (See full poem in posting of 10/28/12 ) And listen to Eliot describe his experience:

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them.
(Four Quartets)

And I love Archibald MacLeish likening this poetic moment to “the flight of birds flung from the branches where they sleep”:

Bewildered with the broken tongue
of wakened angels in our sleep
then lost the music that was sung
and lost the light time cannot keep!
There is a moment when we lie
Bewildered, wakened out of sleep,
when light and sound and all reply:
that moment time must tame and keep.
That moment like a flight of birds
flung from the branches where they sleep,
the poet with a beat of words
flings into time for time to keep.

 

Trashing Richard Rohr!

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I can’t stand Richard Rohr. He is a thief! Yes, I have all of these wonderful, deeply-spiritual, sublime thoughts and he puts them into print (or blog) before I do! And there he is rich and famous and I’m a mere Southern ne’er-do-well mired in the bowels of the blog-o-sphere!

Seriously, I love that man. He says everything I could ever say and says it much more eloquently and humbly than I could ever manage. I should do as I have threatened and merely let me blog consist each day of a link to Richard Rohr’s blog. (And, btw, Franciscan monks do not get rich!)

On a related note, I feel validated when I run across someone like Rohr. Conrad Aiken once noted, “This is peace to know our thoughts known.” And that is very important if life has you on an “unbeaten path” trajectory which has always been my lot. I also find this validation often here on the blog-o-sphere, crossing the path of other kindred spirits, some of which I have already shared the following Archibald MacLeish quote: Winds of thought blow magniloquent meanings betwixt me and thee.

Here is Rohr’s blog posting of today:

HEALING OUR VIOLENCE

If the self doesn’t find some way to connect radically with Being, it will live in anxiety and insecurity. The false self is inherently insecure. It’s intrinsically fragile, grasping for significance. That’s precisely because it is insignificant! So it grabs atthings like badges and uniforms and titles and hats and flags to give itself importance and power. People talk about dying for the flag of their country. They don’t realize that the Bible would definitely call that idolatry. What were you before you were an American? Will you be an American in heaven? Most of us don’t know how to answer those questions without a spiritual journey and an inner prayer life.
In prayer you will discover who you were before you were male, before you were female, before you were black, before you were white, before you were straight, before you were gay, before you were Lutheran, Mormon, or Amish. Have you ever lived there? At that naked place, you will have very little to defend, fight about, compete with, overcome, hate, or fear. You are then living in the Reign of God, or what Buddha calls the Great Compassion. Violence is unneeded and undesired.
Adapted from Healing Our Violence
Through the Journey of Centering Prayer (CD)
Prayer:
We are love, and we are made for love,
and our natural abiding place is love.