B. wrote this on a June afternoon
in 1966, after signing up students for a summer course in Western masterpieces
at the University of Minnesota. Apparently he saw them as a frivolous group of
lightweights. According to B. in this poem, the initiation of old for being
known as a bard entailed more than his
students understood. It involved more than just writing. Probably you had to
know how to play a harp and use a sword, and the freezing immersions of
initiation he mentions tempered one’s resolve and one’s soul—all that kind of
high-barbarian romance. Now, it’s all light and dry, as he claims, and maybe Poetry claimed a few young wannabes in
the beatnik’s turtleneck-and-loafers uniform, though no one actually read their
work. That’s still probably true: Poets mainly are read by other poets, though
there are still careers to be made in literature, and the initiation for us isn’t
that darned easy either, even if it’s different. Poets mainly have to be
academics in order to eat—at least that’s the primary route our culture offers.
Latin American cultures offer their poets positions as ambassadors, or at least
they used to, which is kind of cool. But it takes a special kind of crazy
commitment to write a Ph.D. dissertation, even an MFA thesis. A number of
people do manage it, but it’s never easy. If hardly anyone one reads Ph.D.
dissertations, well, neophyte bards sharpening themselves immersed in freezing
bog water didn’t have much of an audience either. The point is to toughen up.
Our culture inhales artistic expression anyway, we’ve just developed forms other
than poetry: Rock, folk, country music, Hollywood films, television, computer
games, Vine videos on YouTube, comic books, and plenty more. Much of it is
schlock, but much that is artful and brilliant arises out of any form. And I’ll
guarantee you as well that many an uninspired bard made the mead-guzzling blonde
warriors in some oaken hall roll their eyes and groan at the clichés and bad
verses being foisted off on them. Maybe they poured flagons of ale over the bad
bards’ heads, I don’t know, swung axes past their ears or shot at them with crossbows.
That’s still not as bad as a form rejection slip.
That last stanza: “I say the
paralyzed fear lest one’s not one / is back with us forever.” This strikes me
as quite the careerist statement. If you’re not known as “one of the ones,” in
other words, the accolades and recognition aren’t flowing your way, then that’s
paralyzing because what’s the point otherwise? There’s a little voice in me,
let’s call her Violet, who would like to pipe up and in a squeaky little voice say
that the spiritual reward of making
is better than an avalanche of accolades, fame and wealth, because without
that, the fame is substanceless and false. But Violet is like the storybook
mouse I think I remember, possibly from a Rudyard Kipling story, who swears he
will cross the middle of the room one of these days, but always ends up
cowering near the wall.
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