I have been reading "Modernism and the Other in Stevens, Frost, and Moore" by Andrew M. Lakritz. In it, he discusses Wallace Stevens as a destructive character. He explains that Stevens works to tear down typical views of mankind and nature and work towards change in his poetry. "If Stevens meant to be a poet of change, he did so in order to make his position as a writer most deeply connected with the life of his nation and his community, and not connected in the sense of one speaking the common language of the realm and this communicating with his people but, rather, speaking as one who would shift the very grounds of thought and speech." (Lakritz 45).
Stevens was not a Romantic, which is what makes him Lucretian. He wrote about things the way that they are. Too often, many poets litter their poems with abstract metaphor which serve to only confuse rather than clarify. What is the point of this? Stevens only wished to point out the world the way it is. He served to remove the romanticism from humanity and present the world the way it is supposed to be. In Stevens' time, the world was at war. It was confusing, chaotic, and the future was unsure. Many conceptions of the world was changing. From this, Stevens emerged, trying to shine a light on reality, untangling what was real from the imagination. While boys filled with the fantasy of courage lined up to sign up for war, Stevens came out attempting to give a sense of reality to the world, removing the romance, and helping people to see things the way they are.
Lucretius also strives for people to see things the way that they are. By removing the concept of life after death and removing the idea that we are working towards something for some great being, it simplifies things. We are here. That is it, and that is all we need to worry about. I heard an interesting quote today. Although I can't remember the exact words, it went along the lines of, Things are more pleasurable when they are shortened. This immediately struck me as Lucretian. Life is sweeter because it is short. Life is sweeter when it has an end. He removes the romance of life after death and, therefore, makes life sweeter. It gives life more pleasure. It makes life a thing to be savored rather than a process towards a higher goal assigned to an abstract being.
Both Lucretius and Stevens tear things apart in order to bring to life a simpler, more sublime reality. They are destructive characters, but from the destruction, new life rises.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Things the Way They Are
It's funny how the more I learn about Wallace Stevens, the more I see him in my daily life, and the more I understand him.
Seeing things the way they are is an idea that I have not been able to get out of my head. It's funny to me that this comes up in poetry because it's always been the part about seeing things the way they aren't that's always stumped me and kept me from really understanding poetry. To me, poetry has always been about crazy metaphors and symbols and basically goes down the list of an 8th grade English class vocabulary list.
But then along comes Wallace who says to see things the way they are. A pear is a pear. A tree is a tree.
This idea has been following me around for a bit. I have the horrible habit of over thinking everything. A tree is never just a tree. A word is never just a word. Everything means something. Everything has an underlying purpose. But yesterday, I was driving with my roommate through the Bridgers, watching the sunset, clearing my mind. And then it hit me. It's so simple. A pear is just a pear. Things are what they are.
It's so simple! It's so sublime!
It's so Lucretian...
We're all the same. We're all just atoms. That's the way things are. There is no need to over think things because it doesn't matter. It's all dust and it will all blow away. This is the sublime. It's lonely to think that it doesn't matter, but it's also freeing in a way.
I was flipping through "the bible" today and I came across this poem:
A Window in the Slums
I think I hear beyond the walls
The sound of late birds singing.
Ah! what a sadness those dim calls
To city streets are bringing.
But who will from my window leans
May hear, neath cloud belated,
Voices far sadder intervene,
Sweet songs with longing weighted -
Gay children in their fancied towers
Of London, singing light
Gainst heavier bars, more gay than in their flowers
The birds of the upclosing night
And after stars their places fill
And no bird greets the skies;
The voices of the children still
Up to my window rise.
Thinking about this poem from the Things the Way They Are perspective, I see a sad sort of happiness. Although this poem takes place in the slums, which is considered a sad place, the children still sing. The voices are sad, but light. "Gay children in their fancied towers." The slums the way they are aren't always sad. It is a place of dreams, especially for the children, who still allow their imagination to roam. Things the way they are are not as bad as they seem.
Seeing things the way they are is an idea that I have not been able to get out of my head. It's funny to me that this comes up in poetry because it's always been the part about seeing things the way they aren't that's always stumped me and kept me from really understanding poetry. To me, poetry has always been about crazy metaphors and symbols and basically goes down the list of an 8th grade English class vocabulary list.
But then along comes Wallace who says to see things the way they are. A pear is a pear. A tree is a tree.
This idea has been following me around for a bit. I have the horrible habit of over thinking everything. A tree is never just a tree. A word is never just a word. Everything means something. Everything has an underlying purpose. But yesterday, I was driving with my roommate through the Bridgers, watching the sunset, clearing my mind. And then it hit me. It's so simple. A pear is just a pear. Things are what they are.
It's so simple! It's so sublime!
It's so Lucretian...
We're all the same. We're all just atoms. That's the way things are. There is no need to over think things because it doesn't matter. It's all dust and it will all blow away. This is the sublime. It's lonely to think that it doesn't matter, but it's also freeing in a way.
I was flipping through "the bible" today and I came across this poem:
A Window in the Slums
I think I hear beyond the walls
The sound of late birds singing.
Ah! what a sadness those dim calls
To city streets are bringing.
But who will from my window leans
May hear, neath cloud belated,
Voices far sadder intervene,
Sweet songs with longing weighted -
Gay children in their fancied towers
Of London, singing light
Gainst heavier bars, more gay than in their flowers
The birds of the upclosing night
And after stars their places fill
And no bird greets the skies;
The voices of the children still
Up to my window rise.
Thinking about this poem from the Things the Way They Are perspective, I see a sad sort of happiness. Although this poem takes place in the slums, which is considered a sad place, the children still sing. The voices are sad, but light. "Gay children in their fancied towers." The slums the way they are aren't always sad. It is a place of dreams, especially for the children, who still allow their imagination to roam. Things the way they are are not as bad as they seem.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Adagia
"Happiness is an acquisition."
It's funny how this is the first one, because this is an idea that has shaped me as a person and has vastly improved my life. When I opened "the bible" and saw this, I had one of those great moments where my breath was taking away, and I just wanted to shout, "Yes!"
My definition of success is happiness. You must be happy in whatever you are doing, whatever it is. However, happiness doesn't just happen. It grows. You learn to be happy. You make the choice. I mean, of course you're not always going to be happy, and there will always be something that happens that will take your happiness away. However, it is fleeting. You will be happy again if you really want to be. And what is true happiness if you have never experienced pain? Looking at it from a Lucretius perspective, everything is dust. We are dust. Things that happen to us are dust. Emotions are dust. They will all blow away eventually. You must learn to be happy. You must find enough strength in your happiness to allow it to continue on even when the world seems determined to take it away. Happiness is an acquisition.
I have friends who are waiting for happiness to find them. They don't understand that they must acquire it themselves. Happiness doesn't just come. They don't understand why they are not happy. They sit in their rooms watching TV, complaining about their jobs, their lives. They think happiness will just come, and become frustrated and angry when it doesn't, which pushes them deeper into depression. Until they understand that they must go pursue this happiness, they will never acquire it.
I have other friends who live under this mindset of happiness acquisition. They have experienced sadness, experienced depression and became tired of it. They were tired of waiting. They knew what they needed to do in order to be happy, and they did it. And now nothing can take that happiness away. Of course, they are not perpetually happy now. They have their times, they slip back into depression, they become sad and angry and frustrated. However, now that they have acquired true happiness, they know that the bad times are fleeting, and the happiness will return. They know the steps they need to take to acquire happiness. They have the control and nothing can take that away. They have acquired happiness.
"A poem is a meteor."
This one caught my eye because I had to think about it for quite some time. How is a poem like a meteor? Once I realized, I thought that this was the most beautiful idea. When good poetry is first read, it is beautiful, at least to me. The words rush over me, and I get lost in the wonder of it, much like a meteor; when it comes to Earth, it begins as a shooting star, beautiful in the night sky. It takes your breath away as you watch it move across the night sky.
But then, I read the poem more. I try to find its meaning. I take it piece by piece, determining what exactly the author meant. And then it hits me, and the impact makes a mark that will never be erased. It is not gentle as it hits, more like an explosion. Like a meteor. The soft beauty of the shooting star hits the Earth, creating a crater (depending on the size of the meteor, of course). This, too, is a lot like poetry. Good poems may make a small indent, but great poems create a giant crater, changing the world forever. Maybe one day I might come across a poem big enough to turn my entire world upside down, changing everything I ever knew.
It's funny how this is the first one, because this is an idea that has shaped me as a person and has vastly improved my life. When I opened "the bible" and saw this, I had one of those great moments where my breath was taking away, and I just wanted to shout, "Yes!"
My definition of success is happiness. You must be happy in whatever you are doing, whatever it is. However, happiness doesn't just happen. It grows. You learn to be happy. You make the choice. I mean, of course you're not always going to be happy, and there will always be something that happens that will take your happiness away. However, it is fleeting. You will be happy again if you really want to be. And what is true happiness if you have never experienced pain? Looking at it from a Lucretius perspective, everything is dust. We are dust. Things that happen to us are dust. Emotions are dust. They will all blow away eventually. You must learn to be happy. You must find enough strength in your happiness to allow it to continue on even when the world seems determined to take it away. Happiness is an acquisition.
I have friends who are waiting for happiness to find them. They don't understand that they must acquire it themselves. Happiness doesn't just come. They don't understand why they are not happy. They sit in their rooms watching TV, complaining about their jobs, their lives. They think happiness will just come, and become frustrated and angry when it doesn't, which pushes them deeper into depression. Until they understand that they must go pursue this happiness, they will never acquire it.
I have other friends who live under this mindset of happiness acquisition. They have experienced sadness, experienced depression and became tired of it. They were tired of waiting. They knew what they needed to do in order to be happy, and they did it. And now nothing can take that happiness away. Of course, they are not perpetually happy now. They have their times, they slip back into depression, they become sad and angry and frustrated. However, now that they have acquired true happiness, they know that the bad times are fleeting, and the happiness will return. They know the steps they need to take to acquire happiness. They have the control and nothing can take that away. They have acquired happiness.
"A poem is a meteor."
This one caught my eye because I had to think about it for quite some time. How is a poem like a meteor? Once I realized, I thought that this was the most beautiful idea. When good poetry is first read, it is beautiful, at least to me. The words rush over me, and I get lost in the wonder of it, much like a meteor; when it comes to Earth, it begins as a shooting star, beautiful in the night sky. It takes your breath away as you watch it move across the night sky.
But then, I read the poem more. I try to find its meaning. I take it piece by piece, determining what exactly the author meant. And then it hits me, and the impact makes a mark that will never be erased. It is not gentle as it hits, more like an explosion. Like a meteor. The soft beauty of the shooting star hits the Earth, creating a crater (depending on the size of the meteor, of course). This, too, is a lot like poetry. Good poems may make a small indent, but great poems create a giant crater, changing the world forever. Maybe one day I might come across a poem big enough to turn my entire world upside down, changing everything I ever knew.
Monday, October 1, 2012
The World Defines The Word
With all of this discussion on poems about poetry and whatnot, I've kind of been wondering, what exactly is poetry really? What separates poetry from the rest of the written word? Is poetry more than merely words?
I have been reading Modernism and the Other in Stevens, Frost, and Moore by Andrew M. Lakritz. In it, he discusses the evolution of language and the word. In the Bible, God calls Adam to name all the creatures of the world. This gives man a sort of domination over nature using the word; it gave him the power to define the things of the world. Language was a means to not only describe the world, but to define it, to tell it what it was. Man had that power because of language. However, this is not necessarily the case. "The great disease of modernity is to have suffered the recognition that an original relation to the languages of things, and to the things themselves, is no longer possible." Lakritz asserts that nature "speaks its own language" beyond our own.
This begs the question, at least for me, does language define the world, or does the world define our language?
I think that the world influences our language more than we think. It shapes the way our words are formed and shaped. It dictates how we describe our surroundings. The written word is made beautiful with a strong understanding of nature and how it works.
I believe that Stevens shared this belief, that nature influences the written word. Nature influences poetry. His poetry is a reaction to nature, rather than a description. He is not looking to define the world, but rather to write it.
This can be seen in The Man With the Blue Guitar. The fifth stanza really screamed this out.
"Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry,
Of the torches wisping in the underground,
Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light.
There are no shadows in our sun,
Day is desire and night is sleep.
There are no shadows anywhere.
The earth, for us, is flat and bare.
There are no shadows. Poetry
Exceeding music must take the place
Of empty heaven and its hymns,
Ourselves in poetry must take their place,
Even in the chattering of your guitar."
The first line, "Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry,/ Of the torches wisping in the underground" conveys this idea perfectly. Poetry, written under the assumption that language is used to define our world, rather than vice versa, seems to hold itself on this grand pedestal. Only the beauty of poetic words can truly convey the beauty of the world which surrounds us. However, it is nothing but torches "wisping," barely making enough light within this vast cavern. It cannot possibly even begin to unveil all that the world has to hold. However, they speak of things how they are. There are no shadows for them. They do not create the world using merely words. They let the world create their poetry. They speak of things how they are. The world and the words work together.
Poetry, to me, is nature. Poetry must understand nature in order to be. Poetry and nature must work together to create something beautiful. Otherwise it is nothing but a wisping torch in a black cavern, unaware of the vastness it has yet to shine its light on.
I have been reading Modernism and the Other in Stevens, Frost, and Moore by Andrew M. Lakritz. In it, he discusses the evolution of language and the word. In the Bible, God calls Adam to name all the creatures of the world. This gives man a sort of domination over nature using the word; it gave him the power to define the things of the world. Language was a means to not only describe the world, but to define it, to tell it what it was. Man had that power because of language. However, this is not necessarily the case. "The great disease of modernity is to have suffered the recognition that an original relation to the languages of things, and to the things themselves, is no longer possible." Lakritz asserts that nature "speaks its own language" beyond our own.
This begs the question, at least for me, does language define the world, or does the world define our language?
I think that the world influences our language more than we think. It shapes the way our words are formed and shaped. It dictates how we describe our surroundings. The written word is made beautiful with a strong understanding of nature and how it works.
I believe that Stevens shared this belief, that nature influences the written word. Nature influences poetry. His poetry is a reaction to nature, rather than a description. He is not looking to define the world, but rather to write it.
This can be seen in The Man With the Blue Guitar. The fifth stanza really screamed this out.
"Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry,
Of the torches wisping in the underground,
Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light.
There are no shadows in our sun,
Day is desire and night is sleep.
There are no shadows anywhere.
The earth, for us, is flat and bare.
There are no shadows. Poetry
Exceeding music must take the place
Of empty heaven and its hymns,
Ourselves in poetry must take their place,
Even in the chattering of your guitar."
The first line, "Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry,/ Of the torches wisping in the underground" conveys this idea perfectly. Poetry, written under the assumption that language is used to define our world, rather than vice versa, seems to hold itself on this grand pedestal. Only the beauty of poetic words can truly convey the beauty of the world which surrounds us. However, it is nothing but torches "wisping," barely making enough light within this vast cavern. It cannot possibly even begin to unveil all that the world has to hold. However, they speak of things how they are. There are no shadows for them. They do not create the world using merely words. They let the world create their poetry. They speak of things how they are. The world and the words work together.
Poetry, to me, is nature. Poetry must understand nature in order to be. Poetry and nature must work together to create something beautiful. Otherwise it is nothing but a wisping torch in a black cavern, unaware of the vastness it has yet to shine its light on.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
What We Hear and What We See
I have really enjoyed reading Lace's blog and hearing about her story. I thought that her point of view was really interesting. I know that I have always been enamored with the sound of words. It made me laugh when Sexon talked about babies making sounds for the joy of making sounds because my mom's favorite story to embarrass me with is about me loudly "reading" the Bible in church while the pastor tried to pray. Of course I couldn't actually read - I was only one - but I saw the words, knew there were supposed to be noises associated with them, and made my own. I did this in the car, in the store, everywhere I saw words. When I learned to read, I loved to read out loud, tasting each sound in my mouth. Even now, I'll stop and relish the deliciousness of a word. Lamppost. Cobblestone. Window pane. Mmmm Lovely!
This idea has always permeated my writing. Things I write must feel good to say out loud and to hear. I get lost in the syllables and consonants, weaving a story or scene. The most mundane thing can be made beautiful with the right mixture of letters. The sound of words is my passion, and that is what pushes my writing.
But then there are those, like Lace, on whom the sound and music of words is lost. This made me think. The wonderful thing about words is that they are more than just the sound. Words mean so much. There are so many levels to words. A single word can say so much. Or nothing at all. A word means something completely different to every person. Words are not black and white. Words are beautiful, and words can be evil. Words are dangerous, but they are also saving.
I think that it's important to see words from a different point of view. Not necessarily just the point of the words, but the words themselves. For so long, I have been driven by the sound and beauty of the words and how that speaks to me. But I really liked what lace said in her last post about being able to visualize the music, rather than hearing it. Visualizing the sounds.
For me, the sound of the words, and their musicality sort of dictate the images that come to my mind. First come the sounds, then the images. But how would I see things differently if I only focused on the images of the poem? Forgot about the words, but saw only the images they brought to my mind?
I looked at Vacancy in the Park again, thinking only about the images. I closed my eyes and pictured each line, bringing myself there. I was surprised to find that I had an entirely new perspective on the poem.
This time, I felt time gone by, and the loneliness left behind. It was not sad. It felt like the acceptance of change and things that will never be again.
"March... Someone has walked across the snow,
Someone looking for her knows not what.
It is like a boat that has pulled away
From a shore at night and disappeared."
Time goes on, and leaves us looking into the darkness, remembering a past long gone. We are always drawn to the past, but we cannot go back. We are always here, while time moves around us, leaving us behind with our memories if we aren't careful.
I hadn't realized the loneliness of this poem until I had taken the time to forget the words and focus only on what I saw. I'm very grateful for this new perspective I have found!
This idea has always permeated my writing. Things I write must feel good to say out loud and to hear. I get lost in the syllables and consonants, weaving a story or scene. The most mundane thing can be made beautiful with the right mixture of letters. The sound of words is my passion, and that is what pushes my writing.
But then there are those, like Lace, on whom the sound and music of words is lost. This made me think. The wonderful thing about words is that they are more than just the sound. Words mean so much. There are so many levels to words. A single word can say so much. Or nothing at all. A word means something completely different to every person. Words are not black and white. Words are beautiful, and words can be evil. Words are dangerous, but they are also saving.
I think that it's important to see words from a different point of view. Not necessarily just the point of the words, but the words themselves. For so long, I have been driven by the sound and beauty of the words and how that speaks to me. But I really liked what lace said in her last post about being able to visualize the music, rather than hearing it. Visualizing the sounds.
For me, the sound of the words, and their musicality sort of dictate the images that come to my mind. First come the sounds, then the images. But how would I see things differently if I only focused on the images of the poem? Forgot about the words, but saw only the images they brought to my mind?
I looked at Vacancy in the Park again, thinking only about the images. I closed my eyes and pictured each line, bringing myself there. I was surprised to find that I had an entirely new perspective on the poem.
This time, I felt time gone by, and the loneliness left behind. It was not sad. It felt like the acceptance of change and things that will never be again.
"March... Someone has walked across the snow,
Someone looking for her knows not what.
It is like a boat that has pulled away
From a shore at night and disappeared."
Time goes on, and leaves us looking into the darkness, remembering a past long gone. We are always drawn to the past, but we cannot go back. We are always here, while time moves around us, leaving us behind with our memories if we aren't careful.
I hadn't realized the loneliness of this poem until I had taken the time to forget the words and focus only on what I saw. I'm very grateful for this new perspective I have found!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Noticing
Mandolin and Liquers
La-la! The cat is in the violets
And the awnings are let down.
The cat should not be where she is
And the awnings are too brown,
Emphatically so.
If awnings were celeste and gay,
Iris and orange, crimson and green,
Blue and vermilion, purple and white,
And not this tinsmith's galaxy,
Things would be different.
The sun is gold, the moon is silver.
There must be a planet that is copper
And in whose light the roses
Would have a most singular appearance,
Or nearly so.
I love to sit and read the Telegraph
That vast confect of telegrams,
And to find how much that really matters
Does not really matter
At all.
What is this about? When I first read this poem, it just reminded me of a wandering mind on a Sunday afternoon. I picture an old man sitting on his porch, watching the world happen. This is a poem about noticing. It kind of reminds me of the poem I was assigned to memorize, Vacancy in the Park. Here, too, is a poem about noticing. Merely noticing the simple footsteps in the spring snow.
Life is simple. Things are. The sun is gold. The moon is sliver. If it wasn't, it would be different. But that is exactly how things are. Nothing matters.
The more I read Stevens, the more Lucretius screams at me. "And to find how much that really matters/ Does not really matter/ At all." It doesn't matter. What will all this be years down the road? What will we be? We will be nothing. All we can do is notice.
This poem is beautiful and simple. I am a huge fan of noticing (ha ha). Too often, things as small as the intense brownness of the awnings goes unnoticed. The misplacement of a cat is overlooked. But if nothing matters, why do we focus so much on the big things, and forget the little things?
The sublime is noticing. The sublime is taking the time to realize the color of the sun and moon, and the colors that they are not. The sublime is wondering what the world would be like if this were not so. The sublime is taking the time to see every day things, to not rush, to watch the happenings of a cat.
This poem is about noticing. This poem is about simplicity. This poem is about the sublime.
La-la! The cat is in the violets
And the awnings are let down.
The cat should not be where she is
And the awnings are too brown,
Emphatically so.
If awnings were celeste and gay,
Iris and orange, crimson and green,
Blue and vermilion, purple and white,
And not this tinsmith's galaxy,
Things would be different.
The sun is gold, the moon is silver.
There must be a planet that is copper
And in whose light the roses
Would have a most singular appearance,
Or nearly so.
I love to sit and read the Telegraph
That vast confect of telegrams,
And to find how much that really matters
Does not really matter
At all.
What is this about? When I first read this poem, it just reminded me of a wandering mind on a Sunday afternoon. I picture an old man sitting on his porch, watching the world happen. This is a poem about noticing. It kind of reminds me of the poem I was assigned to memorize, Vacancy in the Park. Here, too, is a poem about noticing. Merely noticing the simple footsteps in the spring snow.
Life is simple. Things are. The sun is gold. The moon is sliver. If it wasn't, it would be different. But that is exactly how things are. Nothing matters.
The more I read Stevens, the more Lucretius screams at me. "And to find how much that really matters/ Does not really matter/ At all." It doesn't matter. What will all this be years down the road? What will we be? We will be nothing. All we can do is notice.
This poem is beautiful and simple. I am a huge fan of noticing (ha ha). Too often, things as small as the intense brownness of the awnings goes unnoticed. The misplacement of a cat is overlooked. But if nothing matters, why do we focus so much on the big things, and forget the little things?
The sublime is noticing. The sublime is taking the time to realize the color of the sun and moon, and the colors that they are not. The sublime is wondering what the world would be like if this were not so. The sublime is taking the time to see every day things, to not rush, to watch the happenings of a cat.
This poem is about noticing. This poem is about simplicity. This poem is about the sublime.
Monday, September 24, 2012
The Simple Things
Okay, so...
I absolutely love the poem that I was assigned to memorize ("Vacancy in the Park"). The opening lines immediately grabbed me:
"March... Someone has walked across the snow,
Someone looking for he knows not what."
I love the little things the world has to offer. Walking down the street, I am usually looking down, not because I'm ignoring the world around me, but because I am trying to absorb the miniscule things that usually go unnoticed. I fall in love with the cracks in the sidewalk, a trampled cigarette butt, the corner where the sidewalk meets a building, creases on a page in a book, graffiti in a bathroom stall. Each of these has a story, and I love to imagine the stories behind them.
This is what this poem says to me. I picture old tracks in Spring snow, melted slightly so that they are deformed, but still traveling to an unknown destination. These footsteps are memories of something that has gone by. It really does not matter what it is, just that it happened.
To me, this is sublime. We leave our memories unintentionally. We know nothing of the person who left these footprints except that they were here and now they are not. The world serves as our record-keeper and we each leave a mark. These footprints will fade, but they are here now, and that's what matters.
I have had a hard time connecting Lucretius with the sublime. I can understand his reasoning, how we can feel sublime knowing that this is the only time we have and we must cherish it. We can only truly enjoy something if we know it will be gone someday. However, I had a hard time feeling sublime with this mindset. If all we face is an eternity of nothing, what's the point? Why are we even here? This seems to be the opposite of sublime to me.
However, reading this poem, I understand. Our time on this Earth is beautiful. We each leave our footprints, our memories, our mark on this world. We may be gone, but we leave something behind. Eventually we will be forgotten and it will seem as though our lives do not matter, but really it's all just cracks in the sidewalk, graffiti in a bathroom stall, footprints in March snow... Our lives are the things that go unnoticed, the imperfections, but we are still here. We still matter. This is sublime: true understanding. The simple things.
I don't know, maybe I'm way off. But these two lines really spoke to me. These are the lines that will fester in my mind and stay with me for a while.
I absolutely love the poem that I was assigned to memorize ("Vacancy in the Park"). The opening lines immediately grabbed me:
"March... Someone has walked across the snow,
Someone looking for he knows not what."
I love the little things the world has to offer. Walking down the street, I am usually looking down, not because I'm ignoring the world around me, but because I am trying to absorb the miniscule things that usually go unnoticed. I fall in love with the cracks in the sidewalk, a trampled cigarette butt, the corner where the sidewalk meets a building, creases on a page in a book, graffiti in a bathroom stall. Each of these has a story, and I love to imagine the stories behind them.
This is what this poem says to me. I picture old tracks in Spring snow, melted slightly so that they are deformed, but still traveling to an unknown destination. These footsteps are memories of something that has gone by. It really does not matter what it is, just that it happened.
To me, this is sublime. We leave our memories unintentionally. We know nothing of the person who left these footprints except that they were here and now they are not. The world serves as our record-keeper and we each leave a mark. These footprints will fade, but they are here now, and that's what matters.
I have had a hard time connecting Lucretius with the sublime. I can understand his reasoning, how we can feel sublime knowing that this is the only time we have and we must cherish it. We can only truly enjoy something if we know it will be gone someday. However, I had a hard time feeling sublime with this mindset. If all we face is an eternity of nothing, what's the point? Why are we even here? This seems to be the opposite of sublime to me.
However, reading this poem, I understand. Our time on this Earth is beautiful. We each leave our footprints, our memories, our mark on this world. We may be gone, but we leave something behind. Eventually we will be forgotten and it will seem as though our lives do not matter, but really it's all just cracks in the sidewalk, graffiti in a bathroom stall, footprints in March snow... Our lives are the things that go unnoticed, the imperfections, but we are still here. We still matter. This is sublime: true understanding. The simple things.
I don't know, maybe I'm way off. But these two lines really spoke to me. These are the lines that will fester in my mind and stay with me for a while.
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