PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

How on Earth do I thank you: How on Earth do I thank you for such an outstanding vote of confidence, written with expansive comprehension and your own stratospheric brand of poetics?   I was particularly moved by your conclusion and the choice we have to languish like wreckage on the ocean floor . . .  or look up, homeward. And I believe you may have outdone me with your paraphrasing: "nor need we feed the sharks the best parts of ourselves". I almost wish I had said it that way! I also never fail to be awed by your definition of our supreme vocation: "to explain the Cosmos to itself".   After enjoying all your insights, splendor and perception, "Thank you" doesn't seem to cut it, but it's all I have, so in humble gratitude for this valuable gift, especially for the way you grasped the broader intent of my expression: Thank you!  

Thank you. I think it was: Thank you. I think it was either something from the past or something that will come from the future which somehow had overlapped into the present. I think time is fluid and I often sense this sort of thing for some reason. sue.

My reading of this poem: My reading of this poem happened twice:  first, exposing myself to its verbal beauty, and the profound meaning of its content, knocked me off my feet (so to speak), so I had to recover myself sufficiently to be able to comment a little more objectively.  Also, I am going to be using---quoting---some terms to the poem, and because I do not like the disruption of quotation marks in a comment, I will not offset them in that way.  Having read the poem you know which words they are that I am using.   My first impression of this poem, an impression directed by the title itself, is that it is like what the musicologists call a tone poem---The Moldau by Smetana comes to mind---in which one instrument begins the movement, and then is joined by other individual instruments and then groups, in layers of sound.  Her instruments are the verbs she summons into the poem:  splashing, washing up, drowning, drenching, falling, snarling, finding a way . . . she martials these altogether in an orchestration or, to offer another metaphor, of a choreography of dancing; her words performing as effectively and efficiently as the finest ballet.    Now let me add the metaphor of a stellar system of many objects---planets, satellites, asteroids, and even a comet or two perhaps:  and all of these orbit a stellar center of gravity---which is when the speaker understands what joy might be, and that joy is being at one with the Maker of the Cosmos.  And because the Cosmos Maker is also declared (most authoritatively by the Apostle John) to be the Word of God, we have been given the ability to make things of words---not on the scale of a cosmos teeming with worlds, but in response to the existence of these creations.  As I have said elsewhere, I believe that the one of the supreme vocations given to humanity, and primarily to humanity's poets, is to explain the Cosmos to itself.  In the great creation Poem with which Genesis begins, humanity is invited to name the animals:  naming is a use of words, and words are what we are summoned to, and---two thousand years ago---God's Word incarnated in Flesh in order to dwell among us as one of us, although without the inherent flaws of which we had become so fond and with which we had already wrecked our corner of the Cosmos.  But we have been shown how are words, as this Poem declares to us, can convert hurt---injury---ache (especially soul-ache, I think)---into petals, rain, or whatever changes everything back to its original glory.  We need no longer skulk beneath stones with the serpents (not for nothing was the Adversary depicted as a snake), nor need we feed the sharks the best parts of ourselves.  And, to draw from a contemporary event, we need not descend into such dark and pressurized depths to see a pile of wreckage and debris, only to have ourselves implode from the pressure to join that wreckage and debris.     The poem proclaims that a universe has splashed through a kingdom and washed up here, bringing new creations.  This is a metaphor for an increasing appreciation of the Cosmos to which the greatest of Poetry must, by its very nature, direct us, and in which it trains and schools us.  And having revealed to us these processes, with all those strong verbs playing their part in this orchestral score that she has written in conversational words, the Poet discloses the Poem's supreme acquisition of knowledge in the final three lines.      Wow!  Take a pause to catch the breath after this vigrous, but superlatively beautiful example of how much power of transcendent meaning our ordinary language can convey when used by a Poet with the highest degree of verbal and artistic quality.  This is Poetry operating within the tradition of Vergil and Dante; and I would venture to suggest that this poem exceeds even the best of the late and final work of Wallace Stevens.  And I am amazed that I, myself---having read so much of those Poets and their commentators, and wondering (with the immaturity of a listless undergrad) "what's it all for?"---now understand that, for me, it was all a preparation for the privilege of reading Patricia's poes and watching the assembling of this vast reflection of, and upon, the Cosmos that exists in her words.  In his seminal and ground-breaking essay, "Tradition And The Individual Talent," T. S. Eliot wrote that each Poem not only joins the poems that have preceded it, but also alters the entire perspective (I think of this as being like the starlit skies---that are altered by each successive season as we swing around the sun).  So, say, in Shakespeare, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest create a perspective, along with all the other plays, that would not be possible were a single one of them absent or left unwritten.  The view of the solar system from earth must, necessarily, be different than from, say, Jupiter or Pluto (despite its demotion).  The same solar system; but with such a variety of difference available from all the possible perspectives:  and this is how Patricia's Poems function, individually and as a group, to become her Poetry.  Is this poem a centerpiece?  Absolutely.  But, depending on the perspective that you choose to view, all of her Poems are centerpieces.     At one of the deepest levels of the ocean, there is a pile of wrought steel that, apparently, is still attracting people to their deaths.  That is a metaphor of humanity that, in my opinion, is innately chilling.  Patricia's Poetry---like Vergil's and Dante's---reminds us, and directs us to realize, that the wreckage and debris in that oceanic trench need not be the sum total of our achievement.  We are meant to look up, not down; that is why there are stars in our skies, and joints in our necks that move our gaze to those stars.

Fiercely beautiful and: Fiercely beautiful and immersive word play here; it makes every line a powerful experience. I love the juxtaposition of "silence" and "scream", a stunning illustration of the tyranny of morning when night provided the shelter of dreams. As always, you wielded metaphors with finesse and vibrancy, an impressive part of your highly-charged, signature style.   Thoroughly enjoyed.  

Most beautiful, this: Most beautiful, this evocation.

Thank you so much.  That is: Thank you so much.  That is such a nice comment to receive after the difficulties of the past 24 hours.