"*Leave* something beautiful"
citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Wed, 20 Oct 1999 11:51:01 -0700
The poet and The New Yorker poetry critic Louise Bogan (1897-1970) in her
book "Journey Around My Room" wrote:
"The process by which emotion is translated into a pattern of words is
unknowable. The emotion must be strong enough not only to produce the
initial creative impulse, but to prefigure, in part, the structure of the
poem as a whole. Not everything is "given," but enough of the design should
come through to determine the poem's shape, direction and speed. The rest
must be filled in by the conscious mind, which, ideally, knows all the
artful devices of language.
The gift comes and goes. As W.H. Auden remarked, a poet can never be
certain, after writing one poem, that he will ever be able to write another.
Training and experience can never be completely counted on; the "breath",
the "inspiration" may be gone forever. All one can do is try to remain
"open" and hope to remain sincere. Openness and sincerity will protect the
poet from giving in to fits of temper; from small emotions with which poetry
should not, and cannot deal; as well as from imitations of himself or
others. The interval between poems, as poets have testified down the ages,
is a lonely time. But then, if the poet is lucky and in a state of grace, a
new emotion forms, and a new poem begins, and all is, for the moment, well."
Note: Re Franny's invocation of "beautiful" in the Subject: It is best to
remember the line from The Duino Elegies by "this bastard Rilke"--as he is
referred to at the outset of "Franny" (as are the Elegies themselves): "For
Beauty's nothing but the beginning of Terror we're still just able to
bear...".
Note: The first quoted sentence, supra, is for will. (As I reread your
original post to which earlier I hastily replied, I realize I didn't
necessarily reply to the intended meaning of yours.)
--Bruce