How To Get Poetry (Part 2)

I think the reason I sat on that last post for two years is because I said what I think people are doing wrong, and I said what the right thing to do is, but I didn't actually say how to do the right thing. So now I'm hoping to correct myself, at least a little.

First, an object of study: “Early One Summer” by W. S. Merwin (from Migration)

Years from now
someone will come upon a layer of birds
and not know what he is listening for

these are the days
when the beetles hurry through dry grass
hiding pieces of light they have stolen

As I said before, the main problem is that we're all used to adopting a certain vantage point as we read: one that reveals to us semantic meaning, implication, and degrees of accuracy.

The thing about adopting a new vantage point, no matter what it is, is that you usually have to un-stick yourself from the old one first. So we'll start with that.

I once did a photo study of a slide in which I took many pictures while slowly circling the object. Once I'd photographed the slide from many angles, my object of study seemed less like a "slide", and more like an abundant source of diverse phenomenological affordances. A fountain of experience. Ways to conceive of the object seemed endless, and "slide" felt like such a brusque summary as to be slightly offensive.

I hope to lead you through a similar tour around this poem. I will demonstrate with the first stanza, taking it line by line, and you can try the second.

Exercise 1: Taking A Tour

1. If it were a boat, what sort of boat would it be?

Years from now: A very tall, thin boat that's out in search of the edge of the Earth.

someone will come upon a layer of birds: A dusty boat marooned in the middle of a desert, half-buried in sand.

and not know what he is listening for: A phantom ship with torn black sails emerging from the mist.

Your lines:

these are the days
when the beetles hurry through dry grass
hiding pieces of light they have stolen

2. If it compelled a certain body movement, what sort of body movement would it cause?

Years from now: A big sweeping motion of one arm, all the way down to the floor and back up again.

someone will come upon a layer of birds: Tapping fingers, like at a keyboard or drumming on a table.

and not know what he is listening for: Shoulders shimmying back and forth.

Your lines:

these are the days
when the beetles hurry through dry grass
hiding pieces of light they have stolen

3. If this were the title of a song, what would the song be like? (Or, what would be its instrumentation?)

Years from now: Slow and melodic, with a quiet tympany and a french horn.

someone will come upon a layer of birds: Staccato, fast, and light, with plucked violin strings and a piccolo.

and not know what he is listening for: Warbling midrange strings and woodwinds punctuated by harsh low cello chords.

Your lines:

these are the days
when the beetles hurry through dry grass
hiding pieces of light they have stolen

***

If you're feeling somewhat unmoored at this point, that's a good sign. It means you're not stuck. Time for the next exercise.

We're trying to move toward a certain vantage point. But there is no map. We only know that the destination is "north". I'll describe what I think "north" is for poetry in general, and then you'll build a compass whose needle is sensitive to the relevant electromagnetic field.

Exercise 2: Building A Compass

An appropriate mental posture for most poetry involves intimacy, vulnerability, and openness.

It's like a six year old offering half of her candy bar to the new kid. It's like a son calling his father for the first time since the fight two years ago. It's like telling a secret, hearing an echo, or finding a glow worm on the forest floor. Whateer all of those have in common, that's north. When you're in the right place for poetry, your mind is making an invitation, uncertain and hopeful, ready to find out what happens next.

1. When has your mind been in that kind of vulnerable and open place?

My answer: I was in a place like this while helping a caterpillar cross the sidewalk today. I didn't have a stick or other transportation device handy, and I was worried it might possibly bite or spit acid onto my skin or something. But that seemed unlikely, and I decided to pick it up anyway. The moment when it first began to crawl onto the back of my hand, that is the memory I have in mind.

2. How can you tell? When you play through that memory, which exact features of your experience make it clear to you that intimacy, vulnerability, and openness are happening?

My answer: As the caterpillar touched my finger and began to climb onto the back of my hand, I had a feeling like the second to last note of a symphony, or of giving myself over. I'd acknowledged and accepted a risk, and now I was letting myself fall into whatever world we found ourselves in, me and that insect. I can tell it was a poetic posture from the feeling of transition between hanging and willingly falling.

3. Make that same invitation as you read the poem. It might take multiple readings to find your way there.

(I'll describe what this is like for me with the first stanza, taken as a whole, and you can follow with the second.)

Years from now
someone will come upon a layer of birds
and not know what he is listening for

When I first started reading, the lines felt matter of fact, and I listened as though expecting to hear practical information I'd need to make sense of. But I felt a tiny little tug from my compass needle as my head tilted at the phrase "layer of birds".

I recognized a choice there. I felt confusion, and I felt branching opportunities. On one branch, I could try to resolve the confusion by looking for simple literal meaning. On other branches, I could let the confusion be. Just let it hang around, give up for the moment on understanding what a "layer of birds" is supposed to be about.

I asked myself which branch felt more like the transition between hanging and falling, and I chose not to try to resolve the confusion.

I circled back around to the beginning of the poem. I felt a little bit unsteady and afraid, having chosen not to demand sense of the words. I tried to invite them, instead. I imagined opening the door of my house and inviting them in off the patio.

And the second read was very different. It felt quiet and a little bit distant, full of subtle uncertainty, as though listening to almost-silence. I think I am seeing the poem as itself now, but I haven't quite connected with it yet.

My compass says I should not just invite it in, but embrace it. That feels more like giving myself over for the last note of the symphony. My arms open. I imagine hugging the poem and saying "welcome home". I also remember a few of my snapshots from the tour in the first exercise.

Now I see it.

In this read-through, it's hard to describe my experience of reading, because I can't possibly say it better than the poem. I just want to grab your shoulders and shake you while shouting, "Years from now. Someone. will come upon, A LAYER OF BIRDS. and NOT KNOW. What he is Listening for. (!!!)"

As I read, I'm wading in this undifferentiated river of imagery and emotion. The stanza is a wave made of impressions. There is a sweeping grand distant dusty future impression. It rises into an arriving stopped-short unsettling discovery impression. Then it falls into a scattered patient unsteady impression.

Your lines:

these are the days
when the beetles hurry through dry grass
hiding pieces of light they have stolen

***

I don't know if that worked for you. These are not exercises I have ever tested before now, at least not for this purpose.

Even if it did work, you may not be feeling anything like what I described as you read the poem. But you probably will be feeling something different than you usually do when you read a poem and think that you "don't get it".

I’d love for you to email me at loganbriennestrohl@gmail.com to tell me what happened.

How To Get Poetry (Part 1)

[I wrote this in 2019, and just decided to post it here. Then I made a follow-up post.]

Someone observed to me the other day that poetry does not seem to “land” for them the way that it does for me. I want to try naming at least one thing I think poetry lovers (whom I know) are doing differently than people who don’t quite “get” poetry.

I’m not sure there is one central thing, but if there is, my guess is that it’s a matter of approach.

Anybody reading this is familiar with reading in general. At the very least, you read blog posts. You probably read Tweets or Reddit threads. And you read books.

In all of these, we tend to be focused on what happens, or maybe what it means. The words we write, read, and speak are useful for communicating about events and states of affairs. If we read “the candidate won the popular vote, but lost the electoral vote”, we make an update, then move on to consider the implications. The phrase itself is immediately discarded, like the flesh of a juiced orange. That’s usually how language works.

But it’s not how poetry works. A very common way to prevent a poem from “landing” is to go in, gather info, and get out. You may not realize you’re doing this, even if you are, because it just feels like “reading”.

But it may feel like “reading, plus some other things”. I expect you can tell you’re approaching a poem this way if you recognize a background sense of searching, impatience, or frustration while reading, or if salient questions in your mind include things like, “What is this about?” and “What is the point?”.

I notice I’m delaying describing a better way to approach poetry. I’m delaying because I feel embarrassed. I feel as though I’m taking my clothes off to prepare for an arcane ritual I perform regularly, only today lots of people are watching, and they don’t necessarily know what’s happening. I’ll try it anyway. Here we go.

Poetry is intimate. It’s like a parent breastfeeding their newborn, or a husband comforting his wife with caresses after a loss, or the look of pride shared between a teacher and her favorite student during graduation. The way you would approach one of those situations is similar to how I think you should approach a poem, if you want to receive it as it was designed. Do not juice the words and throw away the rind.

The poetic experience is not one of updates or insights. Poems often ride on described events or on propositions, but they are not the stories they tell, and they're not the claims they make.

The sound of the words, the feel on your tongue, the dozens of associations an image might conjure for you, the felt shifts in your body, the rhythmic patterns, the emotions that dawn or ambush or flow, the way they superimpose, the moments when the pattern stumbles, the tiny pieces of sound or structure or concept that echo in later lines - these are what the purely poetic experience is made of.

And when you set out to read a poem… no, “read” is misleading here. Poetry is language transubstantiated in a chalice. When you set out to ingest a poem, to take it into your body and make it a part of yourself, you have to shift your mind out of its habitual relationship to language, and toward a state of extraordinary receptivity and participation.

Imagine that you are newly in love. When you wake up beside the one you love, you have the chance, for the first time, to watch them sleeping.

How does your mind move, in that moment? What allows you to rest your attention on the shape of their shoulder, the scent of their hair? What invites the full emotive force of your imagination, as you remember the time they kissed your palm?

If you can move your mind deliberately to that place, and let it rest there indefinitely, you are ready for poetry.