Celebrating with the Word

Usually in present North American culture, we celebrate events and times by music and motion — song and dance. A wedding celebration naturally culminates in a dance; funerals and memorial services move from song to hymn. It was different then, and quite uplifting, to attend a literary event of celebration. Last night, as part of commemorating 175 years of existence in Hamilton, Stewart Memorial Church began their homecoming weekend with a gala of presentations of a literary nature.

The church was founded as part of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination and remains a predominantly Black congregation. Perhaps because of the ties to African slaves as well as more recent Caribbean migrations, this celebration by word was offered to the congregation and the public. Whatever the reasoning behind it, the concept worked.

It worked for several reasons. The writing presented was a mixture of both substance and style. There were presentations, authors reading excerpts from their books, that were historical and accurately researched; there were poets spinning words and images only grounded in experience; there were storytellers who took the factual to build stories that tugged at the spiritual and emotional parts of us. But the most notable aspect of the church’s literary evening of celebration was that it did not focus on the church, its history, its well-known members past and present. Instead it presented the culture of all the peoples it encompasses.

Nor did the words of celebration only recall the past. The past was dealt with in story and history; too, there were poems and stories of the present. From the poetry especially, joy and hope for the imagination. Commemoration of yesterday, the solidarity of today, the brightness of tomorrow: all were interwoven into the celebration. And rightly so.

Today the celebration continues, this time with music and song. Tomorrow a more solemn service with a guest preacher.

And it began with the words. Sound familiar? “In the beginning was the Word … ” (John 1:1)

Rhythm and Rhyme: an Example

Every now and then I hammer away at the importance of rhythm and rhyme to poetry, the cadence and tone of language put to a special use. Although I don't usually post poetry, and almost never a new poem, I want to share this recent one (the last revision, an hour or so ago, escaped accompanied by a satisfied sigh) because of its use of these fundamentals. It's not a great poem, but it works for me as a poem and a prayer.

PRAYER FOR DIZZY

May in your new existence every whisper
that touches you be filled with a soft light
that carries in the rhythm of soothing murmur
the promises and mysteries of night.

May grass grow ever taller than your shoulder
and fall away from your approaching face
as you explore the clean expanse of meadow
and know that you belong in that new place.

May life again turn in familiar cycles
unfettered by the linear chains of days:
action and rest, hunger and satisfaction,
while all the words you hear are words of praise.

May simple dreams become their own fulfillment.
Rest on those cushions where St. Francis sat.
And when you sing out in the heavenly chorus,
let every angel know that you are cat.

Basic iambic pentameter. The alternating lines of each stanza (2 and 4) rhyme; the other lines end in feminine rhythm with an extra unstressed syllable. And those are the obvious devices; you can find more if you try.

The poem is not only a fitting memorial, it helps me deal with the loss.

A Source of Inspiration

Some of the light has gone from my life. A source of inspiration, direct or indirect, for my poetry has been extinguished. For his own well-being and my responsibility for it, my cat Dizzy was helped to his final sleep.

So. An old man commiserates about his pet cat. Maudlin, you say? Perhaps so. But this cat among the many I have known was special, special to me and my poetry. Here I want to talk about him not as a cat, but as poetic inspiration.

Those who know me and my work know that one of the themes running through my poetry is the interconnectedness between the human and the natural. Often I will use animals and their behaviors to reflect that of people. Don't take me wrong, it's not anthropomorphic; they just become symbolic of human strengths and weaknesses.

Many of the animals I use are those I observe. The animals I know best become the most important to my poetry. Dizzy was one, perhaps the most important one. He was part of the mindset behind "Premises for a New Animal Husbandry" that won the GRAIN prize for prose poem in 1995. ("Cats are not animals.") He was the subject of my poem "Sandburg's Fog" which won several prizes. ("My black cat has oversized feet.") He inspired several more directly.

And now he's gone. Can I say I am partially blinded? So much of my view of life was based on seeing it from outside my self, and Dizzy was much of this "outside" space. I intend to get another cat. The house is too empty; there is no one to talk to, to curse at in foreign languages. No one but myself to hear my poems spoken. I need another non-critical and honest companion like Diz.

Another cat will probably not be like Dizzy; I can't expect that. All I can hope is that I can again establish a bond that is favorable to what I write.

We write what we know and love.

Poet / Storyteller

The other evening I went out to hear Charlie Chiarelli perform. He's an actor, musician, and storyteller who made his name telling stories about his immigrant Sicilian boyhood here in Hamilton. He's no longer working the Canadian-Sicilian bit but was trying out a new direction. I enjoyed it; it suits him.

He is taking stories (plots) from Boccacio's Decameron and using them to tell today's stories. In itself, this is nothing new; Shakespeare too borrowed freely from Boccacio. The surprising thing is that the stories, transposed into today's language and imagery, come across very well. It may be true that, as I've been told, there are only a small number of possible basic plots: the rest is details and embellishments. In Charlie's hands (and mind, and mouth) the embellishments made the stories.

The twist came when our host introduced him as "the poet of the North End" and at first I went "Humphf, a poet? Not likely." But I began thinking. The main function of the bard, the skal, the scop, the poet in the beginning was to remember and tell the stories of the tribe. The storyteller continues that tradition perhaps even more so than the poet.

Now that poetry has given in to self-indulgent introspections and explorations of emotion and experience, who is left to tell us about things, and other people, and far away places? Even the singer/balladeer has become self-involved. The popular media is so skewed that much of it is irrational flim-flam, an entertainment for the masses. So who will tell the story about Jake down the street or what happened to Betty last week? The mantle seems to have been passed to the storyteller, the one who can keep it straight and simple the way the poets and the singers used to.

It's probably a good thing that many of our immigrants come from places and cultures that still honour the storyteller. Without such "new" blood our records of the simple parts of our lives could become as distorted as soap operas. Who will record the true story of Colvin's Brave Stand? Not one song will be recorded, not one poem published. But sometime down the road a storyteller will say, "Once there was ... "

Poets, in a time of unrest and injustice we need to do more than bemoan the times. We need to lead by example; we need to keep and tell the stories of ordinary people.

Poetry, War, Remembrance

Since the end of the first World War, November 11 has become established in many countries as the day to memorialize and remember the sacrifice of armed services personnel in defence of their country or common ideals of peace and freedom. Many of the services held on this day will include poetry of some sort, especially but not exclusively John McCrea's "In Flanders Fields." I agree with the use of poetry to focus collective emotion in public ceremonies, but poets have a responsibility to do more than tell about the horrors and sacrifices of wars past and present.

There is a need in our society to try to change that mindset that conflict can solve problems. As long as we have existed, conflict has been part of our life. For poets, the first great and lasting poems were the heroic epics that came out of wars and struggles, poems that created heroes and memorialized war. Only seldom was the ugliness and destruction held up to view. If there were poets writing or speaking against war, they have not been remembered.

Especially today poets have an obligation to make their voices part of the social fabric. They can not stand aside and claim that war, violence, crime, and other "ugly" topics should not be considered as subjects for poetry, for poetic expression. War especially is such a transforming and spiritually crippling matter that to ignore it is dishonest. And a poet's duty first of all is to express truth honestly.

The problem remains that war and struggle have been pigeonholed; we do not let it become part of our daily life until the reality is all around us and can not be ignored. Poets worth the name must step out of a comfortable existence and become the voices of those who can not or are not allowed to speak.

The existence of organizations like Poets Against the War, Poets For Peace, and others are only a small means to spread the words and ideas. We need poets to write, to speak, to shout from the rooftops and in the halls of legislatures. Tucking words into books and pulling them out at memorial services is not enough. Even if we can stop no conflict ours is the duty to speak out.

We must do more than remember.