Sherry Chandler

On the inadequacy of being accurate

In her recent post, “Who’s a Poet Anyhow?”, Helen Losse quotes a warning from Philip Levine “not [to] compete with the movies. The poet is limited to words. [The poet] should not try to tell too much.” Helen observes that:

Poets have no monopoly on the presentation of accurate and complete detail (although certainly one may be the only eye-witness to a given event) nor to the response of the reader (viewer) that follows the presentation. In an age where disclosure is trendy, modern technology has created a nightmare for the self. Nothing is private. The video camera events records events with startling completeness and lack of regard for privacy, and viewers express strong opinions toward the material and analysis that they see.

What, then, is the poet’s obligation? Helen suggests that the poet should be interested not so much in facts as in using close observation to tap into the universal, to “perceive deeply.”

How often do we begin to record our perceptions before we have fully comprehended the situation at hand: before we have envisioned the universal in the specific? Poets are often impatient (although not uniquely so), foolishly fearing the lost of precious detail. Thus, we often begin to write too soon. Detail, especially the wrong detail, does not immortalize either the poem or the poet.. Will one more fact (or just the right word) make the reader understand? Understand what? Will the reader understand what the poet has failed to know because he/she is not willing to experience the deep?

People are often afraid of the deep for it is a dangerous place where we cannot be sure that we will like what we see, especially those things that involve our own character weaknesses.

…hours of revision cannot replace vision.

I find myself as chary as was George H. W. Bush of “the vision thing.” My deeps are nothing special. I am neither depraved nor saintly. I am ordinary. Maybe that’s scary enough.

The concept that poets have special knowledge (wisdom) of what it is to be human is what kept me from writing for many years. Because I know one day that I don’t know anything. And the next day, I’m on my pulpit, dealing in Truth with a big T. In short, I am a foolish, ordinary person (just like G.H.W.B., more’s the pity).

Nor can I agree with Helen’s definition of craft:

Craft is enough if one merely wants the title: published poet. The accurate recording of somewhat unique, but understandable details written in accepted modern poetic forms will allow one to get by in an age of mediocrity.

I agree with this statement but don’t consider it a definition of craft. Craft is more than mere accuracy. It is like meditation, it is the discipline that takes you out of the ordinary into that space that is like prayer. Craft is the tool that takes me out of the narrative of my life and lets me see. For me, craft is what it is all about.

My husband carves fine wooden vessels in sculptural shapes. He is apt to say that he does not impose the shape on the wood but finds the shape in the wood. That is his craft in wood. It is the same craft that I try to practice in words.

But I think these are all mere questions of semantics, of personal vocabulary and definition. I think Helen and I agree that a poet is one who tries to see beyond the mere accurate recording of personal events:

A poet dares not begin with mere description and certainly not with analysis. First, a poet must go where he/she has not yet gone.

Possibly related posts:

We all got rhythm

Raven’s Shadow

For those prose writers among you

The troublesome “I” revisited

Internet Poetry Archive

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