No Ideas But In Things

This week, I've been pondering somewhat extensively the poetry of William Carlos Williams, one of my most favorite poets. I want to share with you the pieces that my attention has been focused on the most:


A Sort of Song

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
to strike, quiet to wait,
sleepless
-- through metaphor to reconcile
the people and the stones.
Compose (No ideas
but in things) Invent!
Saxifrage is my flower that splits
the rocks.




The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens



The parenthetical aside in A Sort of Song: "No ideas but in things" is the part of Williams's writing style that gets me the most. That makes the most sense to me, and it's evidenced in the poem The Red Wheelbarrow. Because The Red Wheelbarrow is not about the wheelbarrow, or the rain, or the chickens, per se. It's about the first two lines. The opening line makes you peel open the layers of rain and paint and feathers to find out just what is being depended on. Wiliams believed in the straightforward conveyance of imagery to tell meaning without actually telling the meaning. I remember a quote by May Swenson, a poet from Logan, Utah, which talked about symbolism in poetry, and how it's crucial to explain your symbol explicitly, but to never tell the meaning. You can hint, but you cannot tell. I will have to search for that one, it was a great quote, and I hardly do it justice.

I have found, for me, that I prefer to convey the meaning of metaphorical images, instead of actual images. Instead of finding the meaning in the small rock on my windowsill that says "compliment" in black letters on it, I come up with metaphors for possible meanings, and compile them. I am fascinated by imagery, but I am equally fascinated by metaphor.

For me, the beauty of poetry lies in its ability to communicate things depending on the reader's perception. In a very real way, almost like scripture, you get out of a poem the things you bring to it. The wonderful thing about poetry is that it waits for you. Novels don't; characters change, but a poem will always wait. I love poetry because it's rereadable, because it's vague. Because you can empty your pathos into its cup, and only those who identify with it can drink it in its entirety. But then, poetry is things you communicate to be related to. We write to know we are not alone, just as we read to know we are not alone, and love to know we are not alone. Poetry it not about loneliness, it's about solitude. It reminds me of one of my very favorite Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes:

"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intelligent life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know your duty better than you know it. It is easy, in the world, to live after the world's opinion; it is easy, in solitude, to live after our own; but the great person is the one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."

For me, poetry is exactly that: the independence of solitude kept in perfect sweetness. Though, admittedly, my poetry is not always sweet, it is, in a vitally real way, truth of feeling. I write what I feel. I write how I feel, things that make me feel. Poetry is about relate-able feelings. About communicating the unique perspective that you, and you alone have. I share my poetry to connect with to people, and to have people understand and relate to me. Poetry casts light on things we keep hidden. It whispers our inner screams to the passersby.

Yehuda Amichai once said, "Our despair is domesticated and gives us peace. Only the hopes have remained. Wild hopes, their screams shatter the night and rip up the day."

No ideas but in things. The challenge: be an observer. Look for the meaning in things. Only by setting down the very fundamentalness of things can we truly split them apart in detail and understand them.


And now for something completely different:

It's been a long week, and it's only Tuesday.

Yesterday I got The Office (BBC version) on DVD and watched the first season. But it was only on the first episode of the second season that I realized Dan is Garreth. They even have the same freaking haircut. (Nearly) It was the rendition of the Muppets' Mahnamanah song that made me finally realize it. Because Dan comes into work every day and sings that song. It freaked me OUT, dude. Pleh. Posers.

Today I feel...blah. My poem is being critiqued in workshop today, and I'm feeling rather trepidatious. Also, I'm wearing a shirt that says, "Don't Make Me Get My Wookie" on it. And I decided that it's a good thing I'm wearing a jacket.

It's so nice outside. I want to go outside and play. I want to go up the canyon by the water storage tank and roll down the huge grassy hills. Or throw rocks at the tank, because it's makes the coolest ping-y Star Wars™ blaster-fire noise ever.

There are some days when I really miss being a kid. I miss only having to worry about penmanship homework and complaining about bedtime and vegetables. I miss playing red rover. My cousin and her husband just had a baby recently, and he's the tiniest, perfectest thing I've seen in a long time. So much dark hair and dark eyes and he's just gorgeous. It made me sad. Sometimes I really, really want one of my own. And lately I've been wanting that a lot. I suppose it comes from being the oldest of 6 kids. I've been a "parent" since I was ten. And now that the youngest is turning 5, I miss having a baby around the house. I dunno what it is.

All my friends are getting married. It's getting really annoying. I think that inadvertently, I've surrounded myself with an inner circle of friends who are all pretty much bound and determined to remain single - mostly because they all love each other and it's a mess. It frustrates me. People in general have been frustrating to me. I don't seem to be able to relate to anyone around me.