Wallace Stevens once wrote “the world is ugly and the people are sad” and when I was young I thought it undeniably true. Then it occurred to me that Stevens was remarkably privileged and only a person without serious daily struggles could write this. If you’re from an outlier position this can’t be right.
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I wrote this sentence and still don’t know what it means: Pagans. Admit them. Who saw Gods cared nothing about human affairs. Who instead relied on observation for evidence. Our ancestors who bequeathed us our first foretaste of the Enlightenment.
What the hell was I thinking?
Speculations welcome.
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It has always seemed to me that poetry enters our lives by way of astonishment and not stealth.
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That there are art forms of stealth is certain, much of comedy depends on the aggregate absurdities of postural beings who live in a high gravity world.
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But poetry is another matter: poems are in part a demonstration of steadfast attention, a childlike insistence that if we stay long enough in the old boathouse with enough hopeful attention, we will see the old turtle who lives in the shadows of pilings come out like a sorcerer from the woods. And when he appears like a mobile and dark piece of crockery, we know that patience, forethought, and the beautiful absurd are all the same.
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I still like the phrase: “pagans—admit them”
Poet, Essayist, Blogger, Journalist, Memoirist, Disability Rights Advocate, Public Speaker, Professor, Syracuse University
