It has long been observed that while the ego is useful for making mundane, everyday decisions in our lives, it is less effective when it comes to more important issues; it is competitive by nature, and tends to subordinate the greater good to more immediate gain and gratification. We also know that the ego is largely driven by the left side of the brain, which is rational and analytical; Again, rationality and analysis are good, but taken to the extreme they have unfortunate side effects: namely, a yearning for certainty, a rejection of ambiguity, a need to be right, a lack of openness, and an exclusion from the truth. intuition and mysticism. dimension of the human being.
We learn from research on this that techniques like meditation, for example, have a profoundly positive effect on the human psyche and even life span, and that one aspect of meditation is the rebalancing of the left and right brain hemispheres. . So, just as the left hemisphere is correlated with reason, logic, numbers, and more practical applications, the right brain is more concerned with images, feelings, intuitions, and the mystical. In fact, as Lee Pulos says: “the right hemisphere is the decompression chamber of the subconscious.” It is important to say, however, that both are vital for the healthy functioning of the human being; but it is equally true to say that in the West, especially, an excessive confidence in the activity and mastery of the left brain has developed.
What does this have to do with poetry? All! Because it was Maggie Ross who said: “The importance of poetry in restoring balance to the mind cannot be underestimated, as it draws on both aspects of knowledge simultaneously.” In other words, being in the ‘poetic’ state, that is the condition in which one can write poetry – listen to the Muse – means that the left and right brains are becoming more balanced – more coherent. We could almost say, but probably wouldn’t, that writing poetry can be an alternative to practicing meditation! I wouldn’t say it myself, but I see people for whom I think this is very true.
But be that as it may, the benefits are clear. Meditation and poetry (and some other disciplines too) balance and coordinate the two brains, synchronizing them and thus providing a kind of harmony in which a deeper level of awareness, understanding and expression is possible. In fact, if we consider a few elementary examples of how writing helps us, then we might begin to guess how powerful poetry is.
Most of us write shopping lists, for example; and it’s remarkable when we think about it, how powerful a simple shopping list is: it makes us stop worrying about whether we’re going to remember everything, it allows us to do the shopping in the most efficient way possible, and the act of writing as well it encourages us to have a broader vision, not only of what we need now, but also of what we might need in the days to come. More powerful still is when we begin to write down our plans for the future: this ‘authorship’ means that we begin to manipulate our own future and exert a kind of control that is generally impossible without the act of writing. But clearly, shopping lists and life or business plans are invariably left brain activities. But when we step up to writing poetry, we get that extra benefit that comes from right-brain activation—how much more powerful when words aren’t clever or just memory aids, but active interpretations of our experiences and the meanings inherent in what we do. they? Furthermore, these meanings may be ones that you are fully aware of, or alternatively, that the writing process may reveal or uncover.
And this balance requires us to enter a peculiar mindset: one of relaxation, but total clarity and focus at the same time; and as I said before, the right hemisphere is the decompression chamber of our subconscious where we can access images and dreams, all of which drives all our desires, which are, of course, the problems of the heart that poetry is and should be with. more worried. .
Once the hemispheres are balanced, the magic begins. The magic of words. The God-given power to Adam and Eve to name animals: all the beasts we encounter, real and metaphorical. The magic? Ah, the magic of poetry – when poetry truly intoxicates. Here’s a question: what is the most magical word in the English language? Think about it before answering! We will all have our own views, and for some of us it will be a personal association, and there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps the word ‘rose’ is magical to you; or maybe the word ‘love’, or maybe even someone’s name: Linda, my wife’s name is magical to me, or maybe a son’s or daughter’s name always lights you up when you hear that sound.
But here is perhaps the most purely magical word in the English language: abracadabra! Truly a magical word, and truly magical too in that it invokes the entire naming process of Adam through the (originally Hebrew) letters of the alphabet: ABC D. There is a point to be understood about alphabets (note, also, the letters A and B). even in the alphabet of words): and it is that in the magic words the internal sound reflects the external reality: there is a consistency, and no discord. In poetic jargon, this is onomatopoeia, or what we might call mimesis. Words are ‘true’, which is why children love them, nursery rhymes and all forms of puns, and when we’re not tainted, we love them as adults too. The sheer fun of it; the plain truth of it.
For me, the best example in English of a “magical” poem, and one that perfectly exemplifies the whole condition I have outlined of how poetry is written (albeit with one important caveat that I must mention shortly) is Coleridge’s “Kubla”. Khan’. The final part of this poem says:
A maiden with a sweetie
In a vision I once saw:
It was an Abyssinian maiden,
And in his sweetness he touched him,
Song of Mount Abora.
Could it live inside of me?
His symphony and song,
To a delight so deep I would win,
That with loud and long music,
I’d build that dome in the air,
That sunny dome! those ice caves!
And all who heard should see them there,
And everyone should yell, Watch out! Beware!
His twinkling eyes, his flowing hair!
Knit a circle around it three times,
and close your eyes with holy fears,
Because he has fed on honey dew,
And I drank the milk of Paradise.
This verse is heady; almost childish, the almost too emphatic alliteration of damsel/sweetheart, but sublime. What is she singing about? Mount Abora – A and B again, the alphabet – and she is ‘Abyssinia’ (A and B again!) and she is the Muse, of course, because Mount Helikon was sacred to the Muses, and a proposed etymology para ‘muse’ is from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning ‘to think’ or ‘tower/mountain’. All the important cult centers of the Muses were on mountains or hills: in other words, a height, somewhere higher, heavenly, where the gods, the Muses, dwell.
But she is elusive. ‘I could revive inside me…’ How in those simple words one feels the agony of wanting to return to it -to the good life- to ‘such deep delight’ (those delicious D’s again, picked up like a refrain) – and how hard it is. But, well, it’s not good to complain; immediately Coleridge suddenly evokes the methodology to get there, and the verb has the force of an imperative:
‘Knit a circle around it three times,
And close your eyes with holy fear’
The poet is a prophet (honeydew) – the outer eyes are closed (as often in prayer or meditation) so that the inner faculty can be harnessed, and there is a deep reverence – ‘holy’ – which allows magic to overwhelm the poet. And in that state we experience the ‘milk of paradise’. The word ‘drunk’ here has a double connotation: firstly, it means that one has literally drunk milk, but with the additional suggestion that one is ‘drunk’ on this milk. In other words, that the mind itself is changed, transformed. We really are somewhere else.
Now my caveat about Coleridge’s experience stems from the fact that he was taking opium when he wrote the poem, and that opium helped him creatively (taking my note on debauchery made in Part 1 of this article). With almost all the Romantics there is the danger of “excess”, but admitting that point and the danger, the larger one remains true: that the Romantics explored more deeply than before the sources of inspiration and creativity.
One poem I like to put alongside Kubla Khan is the opening lines of John Keats’ revised Hyperion poem: The Fall of Hyperion.
The fans have their dreams, what do they weave with?
A paradise for a sect; the savage too?
From ahead the highest form of your dream?
guesses in the sky; pity that these do not have?
Tracing on vellum or wild leaves from India?
The shadows of the melodious pronunciation. ?
But bare of laurel they live, dream and die; ?
Because Poesy can only count her dreams,?
Can only be saved with the fine spell of words?
The imagination of the sand amulet?
and silent enchantment. Who alive can tell?
Aren’t you a poet? Can’t count your dreams? ?
From every man whose soul is not a clod?
Does he have visions, and would he speak, if he had loved?
And well educated in his mother tongue. ?
If the dream now intended to rehearse?
Will the poet or the fanatic be known?
When it’s warm write my hand is in the grave.
The genius of this unfinished epic—and it is epic—is inexhaustible, but for now just note four words in this brief excerpt: dreams, fabric, paradise and enchantment. Ring a bell? Coleridge speaks of ‘vision’ but here Keats has ‘dreams’; but then the ‘weaving’ – the profound metaphor I see as the combination of the left and right sides of the brain – leads to ‘paradise’. It is a false paradise in Keats’s opening, but nonetheless the imagery is instructive – for only poetry can make the real leap across the chasm that is ‘silent spell’ – our silence at existence, or our stupefaction when frozen. before the time gap.
Poetry, then, comes from the Muses and is a form of enchantment; we must be in a ‘holy’ state of mind to receive and process it. If we do, the result is transformational; we find our way back (and forward), however briefly, to paradise: a living harmony of mind where the ‘milk’ of life nourishes us. We can enter that state artificially through narcotics and other means, but these approaches ultimately desecrate the temple of the Muses (and by the way, temple refers to their sacred building, which is also the two sides of our brains), and there are consequences, as Coleridge discovered.
In Part 4 of this series of articles we will consider the language of poetry and incantation, the language before the fall of humanity or in the Golden Age, what it means to be a ‘living soul’ and how this relates to write poetry. Finally, I will explore what this means for our contemporary poetic scene.