Hiking Over Trails of Poetry

I belong to a group that does a fair amount of hiking together. The hikes are usually scouted beforehand and rated as to the degree of difficulty involved. We don’t include (in that rating) areas with paved surfaces often specifically designated for walking, roller blading, or cycling. Such are simply walks or strolls. Hikes take place on natural surfaces.
Now there are a number of different terrains and types of trails that we encounter and rate. There is the well-traveled route, often a rail trail or other such path with more or less easy access and level progress, the kind comfortable enough to take a child in a wagon or stroller with little effort. Much of the journey can be covered walking abreast with a companion. Any trail consisting of mainly such is considered “easy.”

A “moderate” hike usually takes place in places where there are hills and/or ravines involved. Progress is often single file, the surface can be uneven and wind though trees and around rock; care must be taken with footing in places. It is excellent exercise and soothes the mind.

A “difficult” hike is one in which steep climbs or scrambles are likely to be encountered. Many of the local ones involve creek beds and deep ravines. There’s a saying that for one of these hikes you need all four limbs to get around. They can provide an exhilarating challenge, a change from the usual.

Then, of course, there are extreme hikes that require special knowledge, skills, and equipment. Activities such as climbing frozen waterfalls or traversing rock faces are not ones we would consider.


So what has all this to do with poetry? While hiking images suggesting poems will often come to me; again while working on a poem a sudden memory of something observed or experienced during a hike may lend to a poem’s clarity. And stepping aside, observing people’s involvement with poetry is much like identifying the levels of a hike.

The stroll or walk on prepared surfaces can be seen as the everyday experience of poetry, the stuff we encounter in greeting cards and such. Nice, but no challenge whatsoever.

The “easy” hike is one for which you prepare, leave your daily comings and goings. It is much like picking up a volume of poetry where you know what to expect but reading that is not part of your daily life. It can be a gentle, controlled excursion through a landscape not quite familiar but not threatening.

We can then compare the “moderate” hike to exploring poems or poetry that presents a challenge to us in its use of language, of form or lack thereof, of not immediately evident meaning. This type of poetry involves the mind as hiking terrain would the body.

The “difficult” poetry hike would be through material you might not consider poems. Even many readers and lovers of poetry have difficulty accepting such presentations as prose poetry, dub or spoken word. They seem to follow a different set of rules that seem to disconnect them for what we might consider the “norm” and thus engage all our attention and effort to make our way through. And here too, the journey can be one of discovery and exhilaration.

Even in poetry the “extreme” can be present, poetry that uses foreign or classical languages, that refers to obscure events or mythologies to make its way to meanings that still never seem clear.

And always it’s good to remember: one person’s easy is another person’s moderate. Difficulty in poetry as in hiking is subjective. What I suggest is that everyone should challenge themselves, in hiking and in reading poetry.

The High and the Low

I went for a winter hike with some friends in an area known as the Niagara Glen. It’s a broad but rugged place in the Niagara gorge, a place of tumbled rocks strewn from an ancient tributary. Like so many others, I’d traveled along the edge of the gorge and never imagined that a completely other world existed there. Not that it’s unknown; people explore there, fish there, play there. It’s just that looking down from the top you focus on the river below and forget the space between. So often someone in our party would exclaim, “I never knew this was here!”

The terrain is rugged but not inhospitable. Its great attraction is in its difference: it is neither the roar and swirl of the powerful river nor the civilized parks and roads above the rim. In its way, it reminded me of poetry and what poetry should be.

I will grant that sometimes poetry will look down from the refined rim of the abyss and try to explain what lies below. Or again, poetry may be part of the raging variability of the river where it grabs the banks. But who but a poet can show and explain the one to the other, can explore the complexity that lies between and still joins them.

In the human condition it is the artist, the poet who must clamber between the highs and the lows, to seek the realities that are ecstasy and profundity. To that end nothing can be more symbolic, more metaphoric than a winter hike in the gorge of the Niagara River on a clear winter afternoon.

Collaboration Among the Arts

I recently finished writing a poem for an acquaintance of mine who wants to use it as part of a framework for an interdisciplinary project for which she is approaching a television network for funding. You may know how lukewarm I am about writing for a special occasion or purpose, but when she outlined the project for me I was intrigued. Using my poem as narration, spoken by a professional voice (i. e. actor), as well as video of a free-form dancer (perhaps in situ) she would explore in film the waterfalls of Hamilton.

I like the idea; I can see it work. I am honoured that she chose me to write the words as an artistic narration rather than a descriptive or historical line of approach. I have been involved with a group that is heralding Hamilton as the "City of Waterfalls" to replace the old "Steel City" image and have visited and observed the wonder of many of the more than one hundred places where water falls over the edge of the Niagara escarpment.

The initial problem was one of approach; how was I to portray the waterfalls? There were several false starts that bogged me down for a time. I finally came up with one that satisfied me, and I hope it works for my friend and her presentation.

I used as theme the ancient concept that all the world consists of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. I briefly explore the attributes of each element and show how they interconnect, and how a waterfall is the majestic manifestation of the elements coming together while remaining separate.

I've done this type of thing before. I had in mind a series of poems based in native symbology. With a musician/composer and a dancer/choreographer onside, we worked out a program of poetry, music and dance. We submitted it to the Canada Council for the Arts and applied for funding as an Interdisciplinary Project. The project was denied, and instead of fine-tuning it and elaborating on it as we might have, we abandoned it and went our separate ways. In some ways, I have no great expectations; been there, done that. But this is interdisciplinary and not mine. I hope she gathers her material in the way it needs to be presented, that it all comes together and gains for her the funding she needs.

Me, I'm content to be a small part of a common effort.

Listening To Silence

I went for a walk one afternoon a week or so ago. That's nothing new; I do that now and then for several reasons. I find it takes me away from the stresses that pile up over time; if I've had more time in the company of a lot of people than I feel comfortable with, a walk is the perfect way to re-focus myself; and surrounded by the natural world, I don't need to be anyone or play any role - just be. So, I took a peaceful stroll through a semi-secluded valley beside a slow-moving stream, kept my mouth shut, and my eyes and ears and mind open.

Somehow along the ramble, a line of thinking developed. I'd been hearing my share of poetry read in the last while, but there seemed to be an integral part missing. Whether the poet who read was dramatic or bland didn't matter. It seemed that all were so intent on getting the words out there, often rattling along like gunfire, that only at the end of a long line (or even several lines) or at the end of a stanza could the poet take a short, sharp breath before continuing. And even that pause was as short as possible so it wouldn't interfere with the delivery of the words, the message.

I believe pauses, stretches of silence, are important to a poem and poetry in general. When I read a printed poem for myself, I am free to pause where I will or must to aid in the comprehension, the digestion of the poem and whatever it delivers. At a public reading or presentation this is often not the case. The better readers, in my opinion, use the weight of silence, of pauses.

Like my quiet afternoon walk, a poem also often needs the emphasis of silence to enhance its full power. We should listen to the silences in a poem as much as to words and meaning. So much of our lives are spent with the awareness of and bombardment by words and sounds that the importance of silence has been lost. We need to re-integrate it into our lives and our poetry.

Toward Haiku

I went to "Purdyfest," a newish literary festival held in the Belleville/Trenton area, home to the late Al Purdy and a movement to protect his heritage. This year began early, on the Thursday, with what was billed as a "haiku" day. I wasn't quite sure what to expect (except that mention was made that the attendees would be invited to take part in a linked group writing.)

Now I find that to be receptive and expressive to haiku I need to have a certain mind-set. No, that's not quite right. I need to open my spirit to a special way of experiencing the world, one that is available to me only if I try. I did so and found that the haiku sensibility stayed with me the whole weekend, not just that day.

The afternoon, after we got to know each other, had two experienced writers from the Ottawa area explain different forms of Japanese verse and their practice in modern English. One then explained 'renga' or the linked verses, using a recent collaboration of her own as example. When she was satisfied we had some idea of what we were doing, she led us in the creation of a renga, or at least as much as we had time for that afternoon/evening.

The renga begins with a hokku; she wanted three short lines about the 'place' we were at; mine was chosen. It then continued, three lines alternating with two, each participant writing and submitting for each verse with the renga master choosing which one would best fit the (changing) rules and qualities as she presented them. We only finished ten verses, with all the choices and explanations that needed to be made.

The next day saw unofficial continuations of the discussion as well as the launch of three collections of poetry in the haiku/tanka tradition.

The wonderful thing for me was that that spirit, that way of seeing and experiencing the world through haiku moments, did not diminish. I came away with more than thirty rough haiku, awaiting careful construction.

Because they are not finished to my satisfaction I will not present any here, with this exception. This is the 'hokku' or beginning verse that headed the renga:

tall trees, tall grass

a river

runs through it

A Different Task

I have taken upon myself a task that is becoming quite a challenging project.

I'm involved in the activities of a group promoting Hamilton as the "Waterfall Capital of the World," the city with more waterfalls within its boundaries than any other. Some of the earlier background research found a poem concerned with a legend attached to one of the more spectacular waterfalls. In a poem written in about 1900 and called Na-Go-She-Onong, a J. L. Lewis tells the story of a native princess who died with her lover in a leap over Webster's Falls.

The story is straightforward, a tale of love and jealousy that ends in tragedy. However, the original poem consists of 216 lines, 27 stanzas of eight lines each. Since I'm a poet and most of the others photographers, I was challenged to turn it into something that could be read or recited at gatherings without boring the audience with length and detail. I accepted that challenge.

Because of the non-literary nature of my primary audience, I have decided to rewrite it in "poetry" they know, structured with rhyme and rhythm. I am approaching it by using a ballad form. The problem now is how much of the narrative can be left out, only hinted at; how much of the description is necessary.

So far I have a framework in mind and the first several stanzas have been written as tetrameter quatrains. Now to touch on the important points of the "story" and keep it all simple and succinct.

Honour the lady, the legend, and the place!

Enlightenment

Last week one day I was driving home from Burlington on Plains Road and watched a hawk land on one of the roadside light standards. It reminded me of the nearby Hendry Valley portion of the Royal Botanical Gardens, and that I hadn't been there for some time. That same afternoon I set out to the mouth of Grindstone Creek without any specific purpose.

I don't know if it was because the valley was thick with early summer growth of reeds and grasses, the combinations of heat and cool and light and shade, the sudden absence of human and mechanical interaction. I felt a growing awareness of all my surroundings and a wondrous sense of union. Let me explain.

Especially in natural settings I get a feeling of belonging, that the place and time I share with other life (and even non-life such as rock and water and air) is good, is as the Creator meant it to be. I love that feeling and take time to enjoy when it happens. But this was more. And because it was so much more, I have had to spend some time sorting this out in my head, trying to find common language to express the unusual.

Let me try to put it this way. Rather than feeling I belonged in, I felt I was.

Laugh if you must. For the merest instant I was terrified: my being didn't stop at my skin. I was the grasses and sedges around me, the water and frogs at my feet, the trees and calling birds above me. Light flowed like water, no a little more viscous like a pure light oil. The fear didn't last; it was instantly replaced by an intense joy that blocked my usual rational scrutiny.

If anyone had observed me, they might have judged me mad. I know I talked to the trees and the water. I spoke with the birds. For some time I was part of the divine that is all.

The experience is no longer fresh; I don't know if it changed me. This I do know. I have a better understanding of Francis of Assisi, the Spanish mystics, even Vincent Van Gogh. Several poets.

I felt the need to re-read poets like John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and even Allen Ginsberg's "Footnote to Howl."

It made me contemplate (again) the reason I write poetry: to instill and share the holiness of everything I see and feel, to show the miraculous in the commonplace. When I receive a comment that shows perhaps I succeeded, I feel that same joy and hope there are more who have been touched in some way by my words.

The Hip and the Hop

Right from the beginning, I never liked hip-hop: the breakdancing, the clothing, the graffiti "art," the music and its "poetry," the sideways ball cap attitude. It seemed vain and meaningless to me, rebellion for the sake of rebellion.Before I could let things settle in my mind, the music and song became nothing but (to me) shouts and epithets about crime, sex, violence, and gangsterism. What's more, the practitioners seemed to live it out in the media.

My attitude and acceptance are changing.

It began with an East Coast artist who calls himself Buck 65. I heard him on the radio one day and his lyrics, though delivered in true rap style, made sense in a way the rap and hip-hop thing never had before. But, I figured, that's just an abberation. Then at the Skydragon Mayday celebration a group calling themselves "Rhyme Travellers" performed on the stage and I got the whole thing live and in my face.

Four guys swapping rhymes among each other on stage, an easily discernable line of protest running through their words and their actions. Movement, language, attitude, all carefully orchestrated into an almost flawless presentation over a prerecorded rhythm track. It was more than enough to send me to find out what hip hop, rap, etc. was really all about.

A little research: hip hop as develloped among black urban youth has much of the same basis as Dub poetry from Jamaica; that began when DJs would rhyme their own words (dub) over the B sides, usually instrumental versions, of popular reggae songs. Take away the music but leave the rhythm and rhyme, especially when it has been taken away from extemporaneous and become finely honed set pieces. You have an accepted and understandable form of poetry that is immediate and vernacular.

So American black youth appropriated rhythm and rhyme for their own use, their own manner of expression, and built a culture around it. Sometimes money and ego cary it too far and produce that over-evident "gangsta" facade. But I believe in the poetry. I believe in the protest. I believe that hip hop is in some way a part of every artist in any medium.
With the beat in my blood and the rhymes in my mouth and the cry for justice in my heart, I too am a part of hip hop.

On the Eramosa Karst

The previous post about the voice of the land mentioned my hike in the new conservation area here in Hamilton, the Eramosa Karst. It is an escarpment or stone ridge on top of the massive Niagara Escarpment; because the rock is softer, it has some different qualities. There are sinkholes where running water has found a way into the rock and between layers; there are springs where it bubbles up to the surface again; and underneath that surface are miles of caves, many small and narrow but some substantial. The original settlers would curse the holes and try to fill them, but welcome the springs and brooks. Trouble is, you can't have the latter without the former.

I wrote a poem about the experience. Now I don't intend to use this space as a private publication house, but since it was sent out to several friends and posted on another site, I will share it here.

Cold Sunday on the Eramosa Karst

We have come to feel its small wonders,
to dance our minds to the land’s old hums.
Uninvited, that bitter winter sun came by,
partnered with a steel wind stone-honed
to scythe the stately dance or slap the steppers.

The undesired intrude into introductions,
make demands that should remain unasked.
Chill light and thin air battle our breaths,
chip at our fingertips.

But the music we hear will not be silenced.
Land and brush crunch whispered greetings
to the feet on the path, encourage our every
slow movement from here to there.

Movement from here to there.

Here the water slips sinking into disappearance,
in a hole blacker than space, and there
reappears in several spots bubbling
to gather together and sing a new way
through crumbling stone.

Like old fiddle tunes familiar ways reach
through the cold to the knowing heart,
the remembering feet, the undefiled faces.

At the end the comfort inside of cider heat
and our hearts’ hot desires hold close
songs of knowledge to the tunes of wisdom.



Jefferson

Voice Of The Land

They called Al Purdy "the voice of the land' and I know exactly what they mean. Every poem he wrote, every verse he read, was rooted in his love for the landscape where he had been born, where he grew up, and to which he always returned from his wanderings. The voice of his poetry has that country sense to it, rolling and flowing like the creeks and rivers through the hills, sometimes smooth and sometimes a little rough, but always with a basic gentleness. The country north of Belleville was more than the place he lived: it was the structure underlying all his work.

I too feel that way, have always felt that way. The land, whether a rough granite outcrop supporting nothing greater than lichen, or a hundred hectares of fertile black swamp bottom, speaks to me in ways I feel but can't hear. The land in all its guises lives in me. It is the battery that powers me. And sometimes when the power is low, I need to be recharged.

That's when I turn (or return) to the land. This afternoon I spent better than an hour in bitter December weather with a chilling wind on the hillsides, exploring the Eramosa Karst, Hamilton's most recent Conservation Area with people who were inquisitive following a few who knew. I became acquainted with another facet of the land that is me.

Land and water. They have always fascinated me. What I remember best of my childhood in the Netherlands is the earth and the water. Not the cities or industries. The same with my youth in Canada. Yonge's Falls turning the swift twists of Jones' Creek into a lazy broad reach toward the St.Lawrence. Everywhere the rush of water on stone. Later the Niagara Escarpment from great Horseshoe Falls to the dribble of Springhill; and coast to coast from this side of Fundy to the far side of the Rockies. Water wearing away the land.

This afternoon presented another view of the flowing of water wearing away the solidity of hard rock. When water goes over the lip long enough, it creates a canyon, a gorge. When the water is strong enough, and the rock weak enough, it creates sinkholes and caves and underground streams and springs and ...

Oh, the small miracles!

Many of my earliest poems dealt with that dichotomy directly. I remember the poster I had made: my poem called "Earth and Water" with a photograph my brother took at Jones Falls on the Cataraqui. Even today natural elements, the voices of the land, inspire me.

With age and infirmity, it isn't as easy as it once was to reach out to the land. Human activities - paving green space, developing farmland for commerce - also make it harder. When the opportunity comes to tune my voice in harmony with the land, I take it gladly and give thanks.

Thanks that the land still exists; thanks that people still care.

I want the land to speak to me and through me for some time yet.