The Anxiety Of Influence
The history of fruitful
poetic influence…is a history of anxiety and self-saving caricature of
distortion, of perverse, willful revisionism without which modern poetry as
such could not exist.
–Harold
Bloom.
I
will never write a novel entirely in verse.
I
don’t have the skills of a Homer or Mason.
If
I copy their form, it comes out coerced
With
no life of its own… an abhorrent mutation!
And
scanning the stresses just stresses me out.
I
can’t follow these language contortionists.
That
they are masters of their craft I have not a doubt.
And
me? I was born a half-assed
formalist.
Note:
The “Mason” referred to in the poem above is David Mason, a poet laureate of
Colorado, who published the brilliant verse novel, Ludlow, about the famous Ludlow Massacre.
The
So-called “Dark Ages”
With
the exception of the Inquisition
and
a few wars over politics and religion,
the
so-called “Dark Ages” were brighter
than
most assume—shining a light
less
dim than we might muster.
Of
course, the Bubonic Plague
made
reaching a ripe-old age
impossible
for many to master.
But
what generation hasn't had to suffer
a
public health disaster?
Cast
your eye calmly on the facts:
From
the 9th to the 15th century
there
existed many free communes
governed
by guilds instead of bureaucrats.
Most
peasants only labored 260 days a year,
spent
their holidays at mystery plays, drinking beer
and
spreading good cheer at all the church festivities.
It wasn't all lords and ladies of the manor back then.
In
fact, a serf had his own turf to garden and to raise
livestock
for the family table, a pig with apple glaze
on
Easter Sunday. Back in the good ole’ days.
They
were not enslaved to the cruelty of the clock,
moving
to more seasonal rhythms,
making
their own socks from lambs
grazing
in the pastures of simplicity.
And
everyone knew their neighbors:
The
blacksmith and the baker,
the
apothecary and the coffin-maker.
Such
sublime domesticity!
I
really wouldn't mind living back in that time,
as
long as I could still have electricity.
Bio: Among other things, Daniel is the lead singer/lyricist for the indie rock band, Mining for Rain, and a member of the Colorado Poets Center. His full-length poetry collection, A Poet Playing Doctor, will be released in the fall of 2015 by Alabaster Leaves Publishing. To learn more, visit: http://about.me/dklawitter
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