Poetry & Art

Why and what am I writing for? What is the significance of my own ability as a poet and writer, and what good can come of it? I have tried to confront as many themes and different styles for varying poetic effect. I have amalgamated my writing into a project which presents to the reader a journey. The ‘journey’ is an artistic journey from the position of questioning my ability, to understanding, and to the eventual acceptance and use of poetry as a means of conveying a message.

 

I have experimented with the use of language and its effect on the poem. Of course, there a various definitions of language and each affect us differently. A simple search on the internet for ‘language’ will reveal a primary concern with translation and learning new languages; this directs us towards the function of ‘language’ in poetry. Poetic language is a means of translating the world into art, the same as painting or sculpture, but in this case, with language and words. By learning to be ‘poetic’ we understand a new way of speaking and looking. This all sounds very simple, but that is its beauty; that it is simple and easy to understand.

 

With this in mind, I have used my own experiences and ideas to help my writing. I have used a mix of reality and imagination to create a blend of language which represents truth. At the same time, I have remained conscious of the fact that simple language portraiture has little function other than aesthetic. For me, poetry must contain more than just a picture.

 

I have added into my work emotion, nature, and the subconscious self that cannot be transmitted in conventional terms. Of course I am conscious of the disadvantage of individual interpretation. Human interpretation is, as Susan Sontag termed it ‘the revenge of the intellect upon art’[1]. And it is not only Sontag who holds this opinion. Nietzsche said:

 

“The feeling that one is obliged to describe one thing as red, another as cold, and a third as dumb, prompts a moral impulse which pertains to truth; from its opposite, the liar whom no one trusts and all exclude, human beings demonstrate to themselves just how honorable, confidence-inspiring truth is”[2]

 

With that in mind, how do we know what poetry is? How can I tell that what I am writing is true?

 

Wittgenstein said that ‘mutual understanding, and hence language, depends on nothing more or nothing less than shared forms of life, call it our mutual attunement or agreement in our criteria’[3]. As a poet one is not left in the world with only feelings to decipher but left in the world with meaning to respond to[4]. Art is created for a response to be created from it, not dictated from it. Poetry must insist on running its own course, finding its own measures, and charting its own course in hidden or denied places as a means of unlocking its true feeling and expression.

 

When I write, one of the things that I want to address the world and the problems and realities which, I believe, the twenty-first century has forced. Consumer culture and the loss of the individual’s sense of individuality is one of these pressing forces. I have tried to explain that through the desire for all things material we have allowed ourselves to be consumed by the society we live in, leaving our lifestyles to be decided on by ‘decrees of state’. My own attempt of finding poetic truth has been hindered by what Nietzsche has drawn attention to:

 

“humankind, where deception, flattery, lying and cheating, speaking behind the backs of others, keeping up appearances, living in borrowed finery, wearing masks, the drapery of convention, play-acting for the benefit of others and oneself — in short the constant fluttering of human beings around one flame of vanity is so much as the fact that an honest and pure drive towards truth should ever have emerged in them”[5]

 

With this in mind, there is a fashion of living in large expansive housing estates where all the homes are the same design and shape and colour. In Ireland, near my home town, this is particularly the case, where huge stretches of field have been turned over to construction companies who have built thousands of houses which, to me, have little or no character, with even less public amenities; except for a small green patch in front for the children to play on when it is not raining. Lives and the deep, deep reality of life have been clouded over by the competition between neighbours’ own vanities. Art holds a responsibility to present realities at face value and to present to open the eyes and minds of those that are clouded over.

 

In saying this, art can have its own personality and avoid the politics of society. Poetry is a voice, art is a vision, what is heard and seen depends on where one looks.

 

Poetry as an art concerned with the moment, one which deals specifically with the present, asking questions and presenting answers about moments which are not distinguishable from the repetitive nature of human life. Both situations may in their own right be unique, but the solutions are not. Sentimentality has little function in matters of the heart. Understanding the very motions of existence from start to finish, realizing their significance, and reacting to them, are more important than waking and running to work. Waking up in the morning brings with it a total change in the way we have perceived the world, from dream state to conscious state. The emotions brought about by change and then the sickening feeling of reality can do more damage to the subconscious, yet at the same time it can have little benefit to the individual as it will not return and it will not change. Poetry is a means of expressing the reality as it is, and diminishing the effects of trauma which comes from realization of the conformity which humanity subsists itself to.

 

I have presented poetry which has been inspired by the situation, the moment, and the occurrence which can only be true for the moment which it is speaking of; be it feeling, a true story, or an imaginary creation. My intention has been to prove that it does not matter what words are used, but what they say, how they are used and what they present to the reader. I want my poetry to be understandable for what it says, and for the words to interpret the poems for the reader[6], and not the other way around.

 

Language and literature are inseparable. it is only through this connection that we can use language as a way to express and commit our thoughts into expression.

"Thoughts Don't Fail Me Now"

“Thoughts don’t fail me now” – I said to my cranium on beginning this assault on the page – For days I ploughed through pages of criticism, theory, memories, more memories – my own and then those enviable published kind (niche or no niche y’all are what stands between my own shelf-space and an ISBN#).

 White ruled feint crumpled and tossed in corners or plastic bags – unfolded re-read then crumpled again in a continuous charade of impotent fictive creativity – yawning and yawning again and again – total absence of all instinct I thought was home grown in the blood manufactured by semen and ovaries going at it all those years ago deep in the (warm) womb of my mother who raised my in the typical fashion of “stretch or starve” and “do it yourself ye lazy article” when I asked “would you be so kind as to…” – enough said –

Well now where was I or am I or ever have I been or does that really matter because at the moment it appears that it is what comes out via the medium of the pen which is of most importance (or have I just created this hierarchy within my head) - Should that be a question or a statement? What does the sentence or the pen (not forgetting the paper but which is of more importance) care – another question and I have still yet to answer the first –

…This is some pathetic parade on the part of my self, antagonising every insubstantial utterance of thought lingering about my frontal lobes mixing in my Wernicke's part below my cerebrospinal fluid (in my brain of course, I’m trying to sound very intelligent) – full  of wish-wash and detrimental quishiness… as I was saying at the beginning…

“Thoughts don’t fail me now” not with this one opportunity to pretend that I know what I am doing trying to interpret something which has being emerging successfully/unsuccessfully for the past few minutes (or hours… I should have recorded it for people to laugh drunk and/or stoned and/or _(insert condition here)_) on my own under a single lamp in a cold room skull exploding – it seems – from over-indulging in twentieth century theory criticism and literature but it still hasn’t presented any allusions or for that matter jumped in front of me and sang waving its arms in my face:

“I’m here singing and waving my arms in your face – I am the answer –

THE ANSWER!”

Chance would be an improvement on hopelessness would it not I imagine –

So seriously what have I been writing (but really it’s typing although I did start out by writing i.e. pen + paper + hand + movement + thought = writing – I can show you the rough arithmetic if you would prefer) for – vainly trying to pull some shite out of my metaphorical/physical top-hat which incidentally is full of air and grey strands of hair – not mine fate and destiny forbid I declare running from the point again  like homework or rugby training after school on Saturday afternoons (and they wonder why no one is a catholic after six years in that school) to smoke stolen cigarettes and find some able eighteen plus year-old to buy us cans for the teenage disco that night in Dublin 4.

Confounded sick twisted memories keep filing into my head, erotic ensembles of times long dead, not really a priority but they just keeping coming to mind… mind... mind full of ___________ doesn’t look good here no one can gather what’s coming out in this blather of pen and my head distracted again from the process of writing… Poetry.

Writing Poetry.

There – I said IT – IT – Poetry – Poetry  is IT

IT is there – finally written I think it can be said successfully and I haven’t even had a drink – yet – yet poetry is not this surely this means nothing and poetry should mean all that ever was – running off the tongue – lyrics declaiming to the tune of a ballad forgotten by the new youth personifying the self originating in the self communally a footprint of the streets and poor misfortunate forgotten leaves which were trodden into oblivion and washed down empty drains by the melting ice and winter rain – a skyline hazed grey by the urban detail of five hundred thousand lives which make the space below the smog the place in which their homes are made – were not this the day the lonely maiden made her way with all her life packed away and draped over her shoulder climbed the flyover above the trains and above any other humans grave then dropped between the arches below to the stillness of a crematorium which she hoped would spread her ashes away never to be named –

“POETRY BE NAMED” I finally thrusting from my mouth – the word but three syllables so hard to stress the start yet so much more complete are the words I speak without that name-tag attached – almost a sin connecting my words with this archaic term which makes noses turn reminding them of school or something worse it almost feels – language corrupted like taste from the memory of a past experience – sensory organs corralled into hatred – mustard is one – my old disciplinary “last” meal when I said a “bad” word like “fuck” or “shit” or “ poetry” –

“Poetry you you mother of Poetics” they’ll be screaming on the next Hollywood A-list big screen extravaganza – swearing W.B. Yeats and William Wordsworth and if things really turn bad/good my name will also be included – although I think I might have to die first –some form of suicide is bound to get their (By “their” I mean EVERYONE) attention – it will increase my appeal as a beautiful person and/or a tender soul damned by reality –

Reality (not T.V. or the News) has gone beyond existing realistically – rules and words in large block capitals in red have decided that we should all walk on the left and stand on the right – I’m afraid to even apply for a library card in case they ask for my life (or that of a small child I think may suffice) – reality has gone beyond existence – what is the point in having a reality without the ability to express its own tear drops and molecules of emotion (hatred – love – apathy) which caress the footpaths walked on every night and morning – the broken glass – the orange tinted vomit – a random unattended dangling under-garment – fading echoes of a dramatic enactment smeared with joviality – conversation can no longer express the subtle passion felt when happening on the foot trails of these instances – the breaking of a bottle over a head -  a brief but over zealous cuddle in a bush – too many drinks and a curried dinner – surely images on the television never speak with the same quantity of truth – words wound in a direction – toyed - a performance twisted from a fight into a play – a drama into a game – a love story into a riot – a moment into a lifetime – a parting glance into a promise to stay – a house on fire to just another day – “Words - stewed well in inspiration - don’t fail me now” – save me from convention rules and reality!