This is the first of a three-part blog on poetry, a topic that ambushed and rearranged my life about 22 months ago. If you’re kind enough to be one of Oceantic’s followers, these may tumble into your Inbox like logs from a river chute. I know how annoying that can be. Then again, annoyance is a positive; it’s an energy you can grab and wield—in which case, feel free to borrow the three-pronged spear of the bearded guy pictured below. Neptune has offered his assistance in getting this message out to the open seas, and we can use all the prodding you’re willing to give.
So the topic is poetry, but what, you may ask, are the open seas? And why have I called upon a storm god and his trident instead of, say, a wood sprite or a house elf? Well, the open seas are “the market”, or what’s referred to in the corporate world as Sales and Marketing, a.k.a., S&M. Any resemblance to another acronym involving gags and whips is coincidence, I’m sure. And while I have the utmost regard for individuals who work in the field, and believe strongly that everyone ought to develop persuasive and promotional skills, Sales and Marketing, as a whole, when it comes to poetry, has the wherewithal and vision of a cracked brick at the bottom of a landfill.
Let’s, for the sake of simplicity, narrow this discussion down to booksellers and even more, to their online division. Now, let’s say you’re looking for a powerful, quick heart tumble—remember that feeling when you first saw Titanic, the movie, and heard Celine sing the theme song, before we went all macho and made fun of her? Like that, only shorter. You have three minutes with your BlackBerry before the airport limousine arrives. You would happily pay to download the literary equivalent of an iTune.
Search by genre, and you’ll find a menu that reads as follows: Art, Biography, Business, Chick Lit, Children’s, Christian, Classics, Comics, Contemporary, Cookbooks, Crime, Erotica, Fantasy, Fiction, Gay & Lesbian, Graphic Novels, History, Horror, Humour, Memoir, Music, Mystery, Non-Fiction, Paranormal, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Religion, Romance, Science, Science Fiction, Self Help, Suspense, Spirituality, Sports, Thriller, Travel, Young Adults. Oops, your three minutes are up. Limo’s here!
Now let’s slo-mo that sequence. Did you notice poetry was in the list? Maybe, maybe not. And if you had remembered (or been told by someone) that poems deliver quick emotional punches, they can be read and enjoyed over and over, and that it had been aeons since you enjoyed a genuine poetic experience—thank you, market, for throwing your cold wet blanket over one of man’s greatest crafts!— how helpful would your search through Poetry be?
Well, I logged onto the world’s biggest online seller, and the first book of poetry on their list is: Six Centuries of English Poetry: Tennyson to Chaucer (1892). Geez, I want a poem, booksellers, not an English Lit degree! You wouldn’t log onto Business and find The Code of Hammurabi as their lead title or Jules Verne at the top of Science Fiction. What are they missing, these booksellers?
For one things, I’d say, poems have been—and are being written—in every one of the genres listed above. Poetry is tailor-made to handle any theme with as much, if not more, deftness and poignancy than its heavy-footed cousin, prose. Readers with hand-held devices and no time are tailor-made for poetry and the med-free exhilaration they deliver, but hardly anyone in “the market” knows how to get that across–and make a profit, which I am entirely in favour of. So poems and their creators die on the vine; they die of broken hearts, unread.
Most of the poets we know and love today—Blake, Shelley, Pound, Whitman—self-published their work with all the shame, risk and low return the 21st century associates with that experience. Many became famous posthumously—now doesn’t that suck!—and the royalties they would and should have earned pour into publishers’ coffers instead.
The good news for poets, readers and publishers is, that we live in an era of great change and technological potential. And I am happy to state with unequivocal, first-hand knowledge that the love of poetry has never gone away—that it may even be on the rise. As evidence, I offer here The Mexican Saga: A Poetic Journey Through the 20-Count, published by the courageous, open-hearted Greyheart Press in the UK.
In my next blog, I will pay tribute to a living, published poet, Gavriel Navarro, who lobbed me on the head with a tuberose 22 months ago, and whose work delivers that emotional punch so many of us are looking for. Please stay tuned for “Whitman Would Have Loved Navarro”, Part II of my trident blog.
Meanwhile, here’s a free bit of poetic fun for the mathematically inclined:
A Differential Love Story
Two mathematicians met
on the slope field of
a complex plane to
resolve a bifurcation in
their relationship.
∞
Our oscillation has come
to rest, said he. Why?
∞
I don’t know, said she.
Everything was fine until
you brought in the periodically
forced and undamped mass
spring systems.
∞
But I thought you liked
beating modes—small
oscillations to large.
∞
I did, at first, but I had not
factored in the damping
constant.
∞
Meaning?
∞
I think you know what I mean.
∞
A shudder ran through his
theorem of existence and
uniqueness. I see. Air
resistance or fluid?
∞
Both. He is a poet.
∞
A poet. Does this mean,
if you will allow me to
iterate, separatrix?
∞
I’m afraid so, but don’t feel
bad. He does, I admit, have an
infinite string that tells me how
my orbit journeys, but our
equilibrium may be source.
∞
His birfurcation pitchforked.
So you’re saying, over time,
that we could sink again?
∞
Of course, my dear.
Resonance is forever.
∞
© Elaine Stirling, 2012
Oceantics 