______________________________________________________ The Fine Art Of Navel Contemplation Confessional style poetry can be the biggest 'ho-hum' bore in the world when it crouches deep in the psyche and the self-fascinated inner-cranial world of the poet and goes no further. There is nothing as one-sided save masturbation on the planet. On the other hand, in a confessional style with filaments of empathy, we see not one individual who has lost love or career or watches daily as the strokes of time erase a youth thought to last forever, we should see all of us, and that poet holds our hearts in thrall. The difference is something immeasurable, but I've a notion that it has to do with depth of soul- and perhaps something yet more indefinable: a presence. By this, I mean a poet who is willing to let him or her self be naked and in doing so, when the purpose is not to shock- shockers are a dime a dozen- if he trusts the reader and is brave with what is emotional dynamite to him, the effect is profoundly personal. The poet leaps from the page as someone we know because he has allowed an intimacy that is like tuning into one's own thoughts, non-judgementally and with all the same questions in place. Therefore, I cannot think where poetry would be without the poet at center and sharing himself. The difference is whether the poet is using a voice we all recognize because of its universal concerns or whether it is self-obsessed, so narrowly steeped in self as subject, the reader is left yawningly on the outside with no desire to enter into its egocentric ramblings. This then is the question to be asked: is the voice of the poet one of nearly autistic isolation like staring down a dark tube to a single point, or is it rather like looking into the same sort of tube and finding it's a telescope, wherein tight focus leads to an ever-expanding, captivating world as seen through the eyes of a distinct individual, and connecting to the same familiar terrain we all walk together. This is in fact at the crux of my own difficulty with abstract or experimental poetry. Without the second type of me as described above, entering into and standing at the center, the words, though technically brilliant are nothing more than a clever exercize in language or line structure. They lack warmth. Not only lack it, but exhibit a kind of cold arrogance, leaving readers to fend and scratch for themselves amidst a page of snappy verbiage. Never stand apart from those who would read your words; take the reader into your confidence and trust him. Lay it out the way you see it. Honestly and in your own voice. We are all lonely. We are all looking for connection. We all have questions about our purpose here: where we're going, the short time we have to dance and delight in our stay and whether we're loved or have loved as commitedly as perhaps we should. Concentrate on these, and poems about beauty or loss or children or relationships or God will all make perfect sense when written by me to all the other me's out there, hoping for one more piece of the puzzle. |
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