I think I am probably in love with silence, that other world And that
I write, in some way, to negotiate seriously with it. If poems are
records of true risks (attempts at change) taken by the soul of the
speaker, then, as much as possible, my steps are toward silence.
Silence which is the absence of speech, or the ability to speak, the
reason or desire. Silence which drowns us out, but also which ignores
us, overrides us, silence which is doubt, madness, fear, all that which
makes the language bend and slip. I need to feel the places where the language fails, as much as one can. Silence which is awe or astonishment, the speech ripped out of you. All forms of death and mystery, therefore, working in each poem against the hurry of speech, the bravery of speech. And I think it is very important to feel
the presence of that ocean in the poem, in the act of writing the
poem. Its emissaries are the white space, of course, the full stops. But,
also, all acts of grammar, which are its inroads. And the way the lines
break, or slow. I’d like to think you can feel, by its accurate fail-ures,
the forces pressing against the sentence, the time order. And certain
kinds of words, too, are messengers of silence. Not just vagueness and
inaccuracy, but prepositions and conjunctions, for instance; and
diction deliberately flattened to deaden pain. And certain sounds that
deepen and slow the poem into sounds you can’t hear–all the long
vowels in the sharp teeth of the consonants. And echoes, and what is
said by implication, by default. – – Because there is, of course, always
the desire, the hope, that they are not two separate worlds, sound and
silence, but that they become each other, that only our hearing fails.
*Jorie Graham is an American poet, about whom you can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorie_Graham This is a wonderful expression of what it means and takes to write a poem, but it’s also a meditation on what can appear when we are, simply and powerfully, silent. For years it has been suggested to me that I would benefit from meditation. Usually, when this is offered as a way to calm my frenetic (at times) energy, and my occasional bouts of crippling (at times) anxiety, I laugh out loud (rude, at times, peeps are only trying to help, FFS!) Who, me? Sit still, and silent? I can do it – with a book in my hands, but without one? Have you met me?! And, then I try, and then I realize it does help and then I quit and then I start again. There is no right way to meditate, other than to JUST DO IT. Once again, as I am working on this flawed human I live with day to day, I am trying to meditate. Wish me luck.