Surrealism may attain to the supernatural (e.g., Magritte, Breton) but is only one of its forms, and not perhaps its most satisfying one: Rembrandt, Cézanne, Giotto, Homer, Shakespeare, Dante satisfy more deeply, they engage the reason as well as the unconscious intuitive, and the more elements common to us all that a work of art draws upon the more totally it can move us. And that term “move” should be thought of very literally—i.e., parts, or all, of our being are set in motion by works of art.
Since I believe there is a most intimate relationship between the quality of a person's life, its abundance or sterility, his integrity, and the quality of his poetry, it is not irrelevant to say that, judging by some—not a few—I have met on my travels, the people who write banal poetry and, to almost the same extent, those who in desperation make up a fake surrealism, usually seem to be the same academics who talk a liberal line concerning education and politics (and often, as teachers, are genial and popular) but who, when it comes to some crucial issue, such as a student protest, will not commit themselves far enough to endanger their own security. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is their poetry banal because their lives are banal, or vice versa? I think it works both ways. If these people committed themselves, took risks, and did not let themselves be dominated by the pursuit of "security," their daily lives would be so changed, so infused with new experiences and with the new energy that often comes with them, that inevitably their poetry would change too (though obviously this would not ensure better poems unless they were gifted in the first place). But on the other hand, if they could manage to put themselves in a new, more dynamic, less suppressive relationship to their own inner lives and to the language, then they might discover their outer lives moving in a revolutionary way. So the process is dual, and can be approached from either direction.
And for myself—not without anguish, not without fear, not without the daily effort of rousing myself out of the inertia and energy-sapping nostalgia that would cling to old ways, to that dying bird-in-hand that's falsely supposed to be worth two free ones chirping in the bushes—I believe our survival demands revolution, both cultural and political. If we are to survive the disasters that threaten, and survive our own struggle to make it new—a struggle I believe we have no choice but to commit ourselves to—we need tremendous transfusions of imaginative energy. If it is indeed revolution we are moving toward, we need life, and abundantly—we need poems of the spirit, to inform us of the essential, to help us live the revolution. And if instead it be the Last Days—then we need to taste the dearest, freshest drops before we die—why bother with anything less than that, the essential?
Wallace Stevens wrote, “The poet feels abundantly the poetry of everything.” We must not go down into the pit we have dug ourselves by our inhumanity without some taste, however bitter, of that abundance. But if there is still hope of continued life on earth, of a new life, the experience of that abundance which poetry can bring us is a revolutionary stimulus. It can awaken us, from our sloth, even yet.
Posted 2 days ago.
