I wrote Harvey Hix a fan email. I said thanks for writing this book, I am amazed by the poems, all the levels of them. The sounds, the rhythms, the images, the meaning. I keep rereading them because they keep revealing more.
In his interview in The Writer’s Chronicle, he revealed that he is a philosopher poet. And it was true that his poems revealed a philosophy. But they invited a different engagement. To his philosophy as expounded in his interview, I might say well, I can see where you might come to this conclusion here, if you define your terms in this way. However, a redefinition of terms along this line could lead to a different conclusion. But with his poetry I say yes, I get how you feel. There is a beautiful truth in you, and I have a parallel experience. I am less tempted to engage in a polemic, but more drawn to engage in exploration.
Beyond my expectations, Harvey Hix responded to my email. I began to imagine the possibility of engaging further – finding ways to engage philosophically on a poetical level. I did so in my mind continually, and eventually wrote back, saying (which was true) that I was elated to get a response, and had also been elated to write the first letter. I didn’t particularly ask for further response, and I didn’t get any. But I continued to be touched. I was in love, not with the author, but with the poems. And I did feel a growing desire to be part of a community of thinkers and poets.
I struggled with the question of how this could happen. For one thing, I had no voice, no platform, no connections with the literary world. I hadn’t even been an English major, so my knowledge of poetry was very scant. Furthermore, there was much poetry I saw, in The Atlantic and The New Yorker, for example, with which I had no resonance at all. Who decided what was worth printing? By what criteria? Yet I loved the way it felt to form poems, the hum it gave my life to have them hovering about my consciousness.
My thoughts are reflected in the following – Ars Poetica being a term I had to learn the meaning of – meaning a poem about the art of poetry; the (e) reflecting my dilemma. (The first stanza also makes reference to a very self-obsessed teenager who lived with us that year, causing me to learn a great deal, but perhaps not enough, about cross-cultural communication. From the second stanza on it is about me.)
Ars(e) Poetica
Indeed, there is enough of that
Catching your gaze in the mirror
Jaunty look, cocked fedora
Sideways glance to see who else might see
Imagined crowds adoring, roaring
As you nod your thanks, your ego soaring
A second look, a quick, severe attempt
To catch yourself at fault, to find contempt
An awkwardness, or flab, something unkempt
To criticize, despise, and regiment
I fear the land of poetry
Like every land
Is claimed, policed, and parceled out
To those who play the game
Of who you know
And who you follow
And how your work
Exposes life as hollow
But if I write alone, will my words be
Pale, leggy, blind, a seedling in a box
Reaching gamely for some approbation
Wishing vainly to be seen?
I only can remain so long
Coiled, crouched for a spring
Before the impulse all leaks out
And I remain
Like a curled caterpillar, green
Twitching at your finger’s prodding touch
I seek community, not to be seen
But to photosynthesize
The greening needed not so much from praise
As from receiving that in you which shines
So let this be my statement
This my springing forth
This my breath’s compass
This my true north:
To feel now with this step that it is given
No fraction’s pause between the lead and follow
The bold, cold deep, or ripples spread on shallows
All known to me in this my home, heaven
©Wendy Mulhern
Spring, 2010
Hi Wendy: I don't always take time to read blogs, but I'm finding yours is one I wish to visit more often. [I thought if I was a “follower” I'd get a message that there was a new posting… I'm new and naive to this blog land, also.]
I like your poems and writing. It's like having a nice visit with you — almost in the flesh and tone of your human voice. Thank you for these exposures. I'm thinking that I want to link you to my friend, Leah, who's writing poems and my son, Duncan, who's doing the same… I'll see if I can do it.
Blessings and hugs,
Sharon