Five tips from The Bard on the Powers and Pitfalls of Imagination

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

~ William Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

***** 

After a recent frenzy of ideas that spilled out in a series of excited conversations and emails in one busily fruitful afternoon, my manager asked me with gentle amusement, “Kelly, does the disk ever stop spinning?”  At first I had no idea what he was talking about. Disk? What disk?

Oh. Right. Embarrassed chuckle. Me… or rather, my mind. No, sir, the disk never stops. Not ever.

I admit it: I am an idea hamster.  Even more problematic, I am a poet, a lover of words, and at times quite mad.

I find this passage from A Midsummer Night’s Dream particularly useful in validating these aspects of my personality, while also providing some useful lessons from lovers, madmen, and poets about the power and pitfalls of Imagination. With lovers and madmen, according to  the words Shakespeare puts in Theseus' mouth, there is no rationality brought to bear on the powers of the imagination. The seething brain has boiled over and has become of no practical use. In fact, in the case of the frantic lover, imagination without comprehension brings danger and destruction to entire nations. 

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:

Although lunatics, lovers, and poets are “all compact” when it comes to the question of imagination, Theseus acknowledges a slight departure where poets are concerned. While still in a “fine frenzy,” the poet is given the remainder of this passage as credit to the positive workings of the imagination.

Here are five tips on creativity extracted from Shakespeare via Theseus:

1.      Actively notice everything.  Constantly on alert, the poet not only watches but seeks out the connections between earth and heaven, finite and infinite, known and unknown.

The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

This “glance” is neither passive nor whimsical. Those whose work requires the constant creation of something from seemingly nothing are disciplined about being ever watchful. They notice everything. They read voraciously. They look and look and look until their eyeballs burn and – at last – they see the pattern of the knowable unknown. 

2.      Write it down.  And what they see, the poets record.

And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes… 

Poets know that in the business of bodying forth, imagination must be captured.  You cannot rely on memory to give shape to airy nothing.  If you are serious about this creativity business, keep many means of jotting down close to hand. The act of pushing the pen (or keyboard) is the only reliable one I know of that can begin to give shape to unknown forms. It is not a mystery – it is simply the hard work of a frenzied brain.

3.      Be specific.  A general concept can be interesting, but put it on a map with a street name and a cast of named characters, and your audience will be spellbound.

…and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Isn’t “Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt” infinitely more delicious than “his lover’s face in any random location?” Imagination requires specificity of the recorder.

4.      Rejoice. The creative act is nothing short of incarnational joy. It is where apprehension and comprehension meet.

Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

Unlike lunatics and lovers, poets apprehend in order to comprehend, which leads to a deeper and wider experience of knowing. Entering into joy through the imagination leads to a comprehension of a joy-Giver, and ultimately, to a sense of gratitude and renewed purpose.   

5.      Don’t take yourself too seriously. Lest those of us in the business of “making stuff up” for a living get too high an opinion of ourselves, Theseus ends his complimentary lines about poets with this reminder of the pitfalls of imagination:

Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

Many moons ago, in the middle of the dot-com boom, I had the privilege of working on the management team of a hi-tech start up. I was shy then, but ambitious, and the hamster brain was already on the treadmill. My boss sensed that I had much to say in creative meetings, but I was holding back. He told me something I have never forgotten: “Put all your ideas on the table. Nine out of ten of them will be terrible, and the rest of us will tell you. But that one gem is the one thing we need more than anything.”

Nine times out of ten, I will see a bear where there is a bush. Nine times out of ten, my colleagues and I will laugh at my hamster brain gone wild. But if I don’t say it to some cooler-headed colleagues, I will never know.

And neither will they.

Reference

Immortal Poems of the English Language, Edited by Oscar Williams (Pocket Books, 1952)

Flying in the Face of What Devils May Do: C. S. Lewis' Re-Adjustment and the Defeat of Despair

My gratitude goes out to speaker, writer, and teacher Andrew Lazo for sharing his insights this week on the poetry of C.S. Lewis. Andrew is a scholar specializing in Lewis and the Inklings, and a force to be reckoned with. Do reckon with him here: http://andrewlazo.com/.

****

Image of Andrew by
Lancia E. Smith

In the Face of What Devils May Do: C. S. Lewis' Re-Adjustment and the Defeat of Despair

By Andrew Lazo

Many thanks to Kelly for asking me to guest in this spot, and furthermore for asking for something on C. S. Lewis.  I have been grappling recently with a cycle of unpublished sonnets by Joy Davidman, Lewis’ future wife, and in so doing have delved back again into Lewis’ sometimes troubling, sometimes transcendent poetry. When her kind request came in, I immediately knew what I wanted to write about: Re-Adjustment.  Holly Ordway based her own Pain Sonnet 9: Unmaking Language on the tenth line that reads, “For devils are unmaking language. We must let that alone forever.”

Lewis closes his poem with a mirroring dewdrop, which of course echoes William’s Blake’s “to see a world in a grain of sand.” And the dew, with its promise of freshness and its significant power to show us all reality, does little to undo the pessimistic tone of the poem.  And this tone forces me to a rare state of affairs: I must disagree with Lewis. But not quite yet, for there is much to this poem that can call us to live well and even to hope in the face of our generation.

Before disputing with Lewis’ pessimistic assessment, I want with full voice to agree with his call to “[u]proot [our] loves, one by one, from the future.” Yes, to treating our loves with care.  Yes, oh yes, to pulling them up from a future that will in all likelihood bear little resemblance either to our deepest hopes or our fondest fears. How vividly Lewis points us to the vital reality that “the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” This is what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. calls “the fierce urgency of now.” This is what T. S. Eliot calls “the awful daring of the moment’s surrender.” This very moment, as we read and write, as we remember these words and go about our days, this is the only moment we have. And while we cannot do all things today, this moment, we can do some things. One thing. And we can do it well.

I also agree that forces have arrayed themselves against language.  Devils indeed, and unmaking not only words but the meanings behind. One deep irony that troubles my days comes from thinking about how, in this world based on text, language seems to slip away. The forces I fight from day to day in the classroom and at the keyboard seem all too subtly yet effectively well-armed in their attempt to silence good words, or make off with meaning. I don’t decry emoticons, texts, and tweets, but I despair if this is all we have left. And here’s where I believe that Lewis got it all wrong.

For I regularly find myself in the warm company of “a posterity of gentle hearts.” My friends and I have picked up the signal ringing out, however faintly, from Lothlorien, from Avalon, from the glad and golden courts of Cair Paravel. The echoes come clearly in our eager ears, and we can understand their story. Lewis’ pessimism loses me here; perhaps he has in this poem given way to a carrion comfort of despair that I (and all those I love best) reject out of hand. 

Lewis is right that now offers us some shining wet reflections of all we yet can find. He’s right that moments, though small, offer sometimes disproportionate significance as they make up the tiny puzzle-pieces of these our lives we long to live well. I would argue that Lewis’ despair fails to serve us—but more so, it fails to convince me. For all those with whom I surround myself do understand their story. We read them, argue about them, and then write some ourselves.  Poetry, in measurable and meaningful ways, certainly continues to thrive, and makes eyes shine. I count as the most precious hours of my life those I spend laughing and fighting and creating and reciting and singing and dancing, all as responses to their stories.

Yes. Devils are unmaking language. But my fellowship and I refuse to believe that’s the end of the story—for we’ve read the right sort of books, and we know down to our bones how this and all stories must end. All the more, we who can understand a story have busied ourselves re-making it, stitching it back together, sub-creating, and creating more joy as poignant as grief. And in such celebration of the grace of language, and flying in the face of whatever devils may do, we place ourselves patiently, hopefully, faithfully on the side of the angels.

Honoring Japan with small words

Laid waste on this journey.
My dreams wander scattered
through desolate fields.

~ Matsuo Basho (c. 1644-94)

*****

I pause with Japan to mark one year from yesterday since the earthquake and tsunami that laid waste seaside villages.  

The pictures and news stories are still so clear in my mind, scattered as if through Basho’s desolate fields: a boat perched ridiculously on top of a house; an injured dog discovered by his mate on a stranded beach, a first sign of hope; a distraught mother, her baby snatched from her hands and swept out to sea just moments before.

As these images came rushing in on the tide of the 24/7 news cycle, I wept. I had come to feel a connection with many poets from Japan over the past few years, through my exploration of modern haiku poets on twitter (I tweet poetry and follow other Twitter poets under @haikunut).

I learn by doing, and back in 2008-ish (can't quite remember when) I wanted to learn what the fuss was about with this thing called "Twitter." My goal was to learn about this social media tool and how to use it, not to develop ties or even really to grow in the writing craft (though that seemed a nice potential perk at the time).  Be forewarned if you have yet to tweet with the poets – they will capture your heart.

So naturally, back last March, when the news became too much, I turned to what had become a form of release -- tweeting poetry. Here is one short poem I wrote after the disaster:

 

I see a boat
on a house
half a world away
and hug my son
tighter to my chest

Writing seemed at the time an anemic gesture, but it was what I had to offer to the journey laid waste.  My fellow haiku poets in the north east towns and villages of Japan would never be the same.  I honored them then and do so now the only way I have ever known how: with small words.

Reference

Classic Haiku: The Greatest Japanese Poetry From Basho, Buson, Issa, Shiki and Their Followers, Edited and Introduced by Tom Lowenstein (Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2007)

Guest Blog: Scott Morgan: If Only...

Writers write. But a writer who writes to writers about writing, who cheers your writerly soul and shouts practical advice from the margins like your favorite hard-talking good hearted coach… now that is someone special.

I was fortunate enough to see retweets of Scott Morgan (@write_hook) floating through my Twitter stream some fine day in the past twelve months as I was wrestling with another bout of writer angst. I was instantly energized to get back in the game.

Scott and I have swapped blogs this week. Scott’s blog – Write Hook: Write for the Jugular – provides great counsel to, from, and for professional writers. That said, I have yet to read a post that would not be of benefit to anyone who seeks to improve their facility with the written word. Check him out.

For All Nine, Scott shares what stirs him about Rudyard Kipling’s If.

If Only ...

When it comes to the written word, there are exactly two pieces of writing that give me the chills. One is The Letter To Mrs. Bixby, written by President Lincoln during the Civil War. The other is Rudyard Kipling's If.

The funny thing is that unlike President Lincoln, Rudyard Kipling never wrote another thing I like. Kipling wrote volumes and volumes of poems and stories and books in addition to If, and not one of them sticks in my head, nor means a thing. To this day, I read If and it moves me to tears.

The truly infuriating thing is that the poem is so good, the only way to describe it with any justice is to use hackneyed twaddle that any frustrated high school sophomore would use to tell a girl that he would die for her. So forgive me if I sound trite. The very totality of this poem makes it impossible to narrow it down to anything as simple is "I loved your opening line."

Perhaps the wisdom of If is a reflection of Kipling's age when he wrote it. Perhaps my growing fondness for it is a reflection of my aging self as well. I'm well past my 20s (and somewhat past my 30s), and as the realities of the world and making my way through it have scrubbed the shine off my dewy youthful optimism, the delicacy with which Kipling explains the price of adulthood is staggering.

The truly sublime thing about this poem is that it is always best in your own voice, in your own head. I've read If a thousand times, but I have never heard it recited particularly well. To me this is the zenith of the written word, the intersection of the universal and the personal. Countless men (more so than women, I have found) internalize this poem and commit all 32 lines to memory. And yet each hears it differently. Experiences it differently. Responds to it differently.

If is magic. In it is the secret of life; the voice of the common man, and the voice of God. It is the universe, in all its aged wisdom and the promise of new life. It is a guide path through the morass; a map that can be referenced any time, from anywhere, that always leads me to safety. And that place of safety is always within myself.

To say that I aspire to write this well is to say that I aspire to breathe and laugh and love. And yet I take comfort from the fact that I never could. I do not compare myself to Rudyard Kipling, as a writer or a sage. And, in truth, I don't really want to write a poem like If.

But what If gives me to aim for is the unreachable ideal. The drive to connect, to resonate. The desire to leave this world with something that says "I was here. And it mattered that I was."

And if I can smile as my hopes for transcendence come to nothing, I will have lived up to the ideal that If lays out. It's a tall order for sure. But would it be worth it if it were any other way?

Writing for a rock: On Butler's Monument

On the Setting Up Mr. Butler’s Monument in Westminster Abbey

While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive
No generous patron would a dinner give.
See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust!
The poet’s fate is here in emblem shown;
He asked for bread, and he received a stone.

~ attr. Samuel Wesley (1691-1739)

*****

This will be a short post this week, as I wish to take time away from blogging for the writing of poetry, for which I may (some sweet day) be rewarded with… a stone. This poem (and the contemplation of writing more poetry) does beg the question: Why do we poets bother? Certainly not for a patron, or a meal, or a monument, as is implied in Wesley’s words.

Why do you write? Please ease my mind, and my writing burden, by filling in some of this empty space with your thoughts on the matter.

Reference

The Oxford Book of Short Poems, edited by P.J. Kavanagh and James Michie (Oxford University Press, 1987)

Carrion Comfort: fighting the temptation to be less than human

Carrion Comfort

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist—slack they may be—these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom though? The hero whose heaven-handling flung me, foot trod
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

*****

Between the end of my freshman year and beginning of my junior year as an undergraduate at Gordon College, I must have walked a thousand laps around the campus quad between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and midnight. It was often dangerous and foolhardy, given the hour and solitude, and the epitome of all that is stubborn in me. I may very well have walked a rut into the pavement. I walked in all kinds of weather, mostly alone, and one time nearly met my early demise under a moving salt truck as I determinedly trudged/slid my way around the campus following an ice storm.

I walked mainly because it was something to do. Something I could do other than “not choose not to be.” It was a small, perhaps pathetic (though nonetheless real), action against Despair. I think Gerard Manley Hopkins would have understood this.

I love Hopkins’ use of fighting and fraught language in Carrion Comfort. It is how depression feels sometimes, a fighting for the right words, a wrestling with meaning. Like the three times in the first line repeating the word “not.” It’s the beginning of getting his fight on, even in a stuttering way. That is when depression doesn’t get the better of you, when you can still fight it. And then a fourth time at the beginning of the second line, he does it again: “Not untwist… these last strands of man / in me.”  I hear you, GM. Fight it, man, fight it.

It was during my long walks alone around campus that I discovered that large rodents feasted at the dumpsters (I didn’t get close enough to identify them, but I assume they were rats). I don’t claim to be a subject matter expert on all things Rattus. What I do know by late night observation is they are not particular in their eating habits. You may even say they are carrion consumers. They eat dead stuff, whatever we throw away.

Giving in to despair is succumbing to the temptation to be less than human. Carrion comfort is giving up our particular will toward special action in favor of passive mere survivalist rat behavior. It’s junk food binging at the extreme.

No, says Hopkins (and so said I as I paced and paced the college campus): I can. I can be more than a rat. “I can; / can something” may be my favorite four words in this entire poem. In its still stuttering way, it separates us from the rats. We can have a will that moves toward some specific thing, which in itself is hope and a move toward not choosing not to be.

It is not surprising to me – based on my own experience with the ups and downs of depression – that the next few lines move Hopkins away from despair and into anger. Depression is anger internalized. When we begin to take action against it, the inevitable happens – it moves outward. And Hopkins goes right for the big anger – taking on God Himself, asking, “O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me / Thy wring-world right foot rock?” In other words, why are you roughing me up, God?

And then he eventually finds meaning: “Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.” I remember the moment things began to clear for me in college. I had just seen Out of Africa, and there was a scene in it in which Meryl Streep takes coffee beans in her hands, rubs them together, and blows away the chaff (or whatever you call the crusty stuff that comes off of coffee beans). It was an “Ah ha moment” for me. Oh, God, that’s what You’ve been up to. That’s why all this pain. It’s emotional exfoliation.  I get it now.

Ironically, it’s sort of like Neitzche’s often quoted statement, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Of course, Neitzche wasn’t trying to find meaning with or from God, but rather without, which would have led to a very different poem, I dare say.

I love how Hopkins ends this poem with a nod to Jacob’s fighting match with an angel (Genesis 32). Jacob would have his blessing from God if he had to wrestle the Most High over it; even if he had to limp away, bruised, broken, but still blessed, doggonit.  Jacob was many things, but he was no dumpster diving, carrion feeder. He took action.

So when I begin to the see that Black Dog’s shadow around the corner, still, I put on my walking shoes. And limp my way into a blessing.

Reference

Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose (Penguin Classics, 1985)

Marvell's Plate of Petit-fours: To His Coy Mistress

It is a great honor to have my friend and regular muse, Dr. Holly Ordway, filling in as guest blogger this week.  Holly is a writer, speaker, teacher, and Christian apologist exploring the intersection of literature and faith, reason and imagination. She also has a delightful sense of humor and not a small amount of skill in fencing (both literal and figurative), both of which are on display in her post below. You can follow Dr. Ordway's reflections on her website at http://www.hieropraxis.com/ or on twitter @HollyOrdway.

To His Coy Mistress

Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

        But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

-- Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

---------------------

A plate of petit-fours: that’s what “To His Coy Mistress” is for me. This poem, with its delicately crafted lines in iambic tetrameter, is loaded with images and wordplay that I want to savor like tiny, delicate pastries: here a cream puff, there a little tartlet topped with a delicate glazed strawberry.

Perhaps it’s part of the charm of this poem that I don’t remember when or where I first encountered it. All I know is that somewhere along the line, Marvell sweet-talked himself into becoming one of my favorites!

In the opening line, the poet-narrator announces boldly, “Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, Lady, were no crime”: surely an appeal to haste! Yet he then spends the next eighteen lines, almost half the poem, lazily elaborating on all that he would do if they had, indeed, all the time in the world... and so I come back to this poem again and again, to savor, leisurely, the images Marvell gives me.

Take, for instance, “My vegetable love should grow / Vaster than empires, and more slow.” I imagine the growth of ivy up the walls of a building: slow, persistent, curling its tendrils around a window frame here, a corner there: Love, quietly insinuating itself into the heart of the beloved. And this heart’s ivy may be slow, but it’s bold, taking no heed of distances. The territory claimed by Love is indeed “Vaster than empires.”

In the middle part of the poem, the poet shifts gears: “But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.” What a great line! One minute, we’re strolling by the banks of the river, to “pass our long love's day,” and now Time is hurrying near, the chariot-wheels rattling. I picture an ornate, gilded chariot, with little decorative wings attached onto the side. It can’t be a functionally flying chariot, or else the poet wouldn’t be able to hear it coming - it would just be “Whoosh! Time is upon us!” That’s part of what I love about this poem - the subtle ridiculousness of it, the combination of frivolity with seriousness.

For a moment it seems like this confection has turned sour: he tells his lady that she’s only going to get older, lose her beauty, and die; worms will turn her “quaint Honour” to dust. Oh, dear. Impatience has spoiled romance... but wait, is that a teasing note? “Worms shall try / That long preserv’d virginity: / And your quaint honour turn to dust...” - the poet seems to be working up to a fierce condemnation of his mistress’s recalcitrance - and then “...And into ashes all my lust.” I can imagine the poet laughing at himself here, as he brings the build-up crashing down with the deflation of his own erotic impatience.

The lines that sum up this section are deadpan funny: “The grave's a fine and private place, / But none I think do there embrace.” It’s as if he’s giving us a line from a real estate advertisement - a very fine and private place, perfect for lovers! - and then dryly pointing out that most likely not much is going on there!

Perhaps it’s because I delight so much in the humor and playfulness of the poem that I find the conclusion oddly moving. Marvell has been laughing at himself throughout the poem, yet in the closing lines, I feel keenly that he’s captured a certain real urgency in the face of time, a desire that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with sex. Rather, I hear the echo of longing for all that life and love and beauty promise, with the fulfillment just out of reach. “Now let us sport us while we may...”

Hurry, he says, hurry! Life is short! And yet this hurry-up poem is one that always gets me to slow down, as I savor the delicate pastry-bites of this line, or that line. Marvell, you are a marvel!

Reference

Marvell: Poems. Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets. (New York: Knopf, 2004)