I was going to title this blog "more great stuff about how the making of art parallels our journeys in spiritual formation." But that was a little long. The truth is, more and more I see that the making of art is a way becoming aware and alive to one central part of me that is being spiritually formed. (not the only part, but a very crucial one...perhaps this is our soul?)
I just read something Mary Oliver wrote along those lines. For those of you who aren't acquainted with Oliver--check her out! Oliver is a contemporary poet who is an Anglican (or Episcopalian) who writes beautifully and accessibly both about nature and about Christ. The Christian element is most especially obvious in her recent book, Thirst.
I have been reading one of her books about how to write poetry, A Poetry Handbook. And at the very end she mentions two "cherished" quotes about art making. The first by the French novelist, Flaubert. He says, "Talent is long patience, and originality an effort of will and of intense observation."
Oliver then comments: "What a hopeful statement! For who needs to be shy of any of these? No one! How patient are you, and what is the steel of your will, and how well do you look and see the things of this world? If your honest answers are shabby, you can change them.... What Flaubert is talking about are skills, after all..."
My response to what she says and to Flaubert's quote is to say, Yes. Talent is a small thing. And not worth my attention, since it is completely outside of my control. The parallel to our spiritual journeys, that I see, is that for any good change to occur in any part of my life, I am completely dependent on the grace of God coming to me. And I can do nothing to control this. But, I can do something. I can learn skills of "Patience" and "intense observation".
As Oliver says, "When people ask me if I do not take pleasere in poems I have written, I am astonished. What I think of all the time is how to have more patience, and a wilder will--how to see better, and write better."
A Wilder Will. What a remarkable thing to say... to dwell on... to pray for.
Oliver's second cherished quote is from the poet Emerson, who said: The poem is a confession of faith.
Oliver then says,
"Which is to say, the poem is not an exercise. It is not "wordplay." Whatever skill or beauty it has, it contains something beyond language devices, and has a purpose other than itself. And it is a part of the sensibility of the writer. ....."
In the quote below Oliver talks about the importance of nourishing that "sensibility..." which I would call the "soul." Obviously this nuturing is crucial for every soul, not only those who would be poets. Her counsel is good and beautiful. I give it to you as a blessing:
"Althetes take care of their bodies. Writers must similarily take care of the sensibility that houses the possiblity of poems. There is nourishment in books, other art, history, philosophies-- in holiness and in mirth. It is in honest hands-on labor also... And it is in the green world--among people, and animals, and trees for that matter, if one genuinely cares about trees. A mind that is lively and inquiring, compassionate, curious, angry, full of music, full of feeling, is a mind full of possible poetry. Poetry is a life-cherishing force. And it requires a vision--a faith, to use an old-fashioned term.
"Yes, indeed. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry."
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Thursday, December 27, 2007
A Walk to Clear
Take a walk.
I've read this piece of advice for writers from many different experts, and I can attest that, at least in my experience, it is wonderfully sound counsel.
Again and again I find that when I am stuck or scared or bored or all three in my writing, or in my life in general, the very best thing I can do is walk, alone and without haste or great intention. I don't have any idea why it works. But it does. Somehow. It seems to make space, beyond my tight efforts. Often even when I'm walking an idea comes for how to solve a problem in the poem, or suddenly I know what I really wanted to say, or I am aware of an image that comes from deeper than my thoughts and is truer, too.
The wonderful poet Robert Frost took a lot of walks, and that is immediately obvious in his poetry. Here are some links to some of those poems.
http://www.ketzle.com/frost/#frostlinks
If you are an artist, (and you are), let this be my Christmas gift to you... permission, even urging, to take a walk. Meandering and solitary, restful and awake... I believe then this will be the seedlings for your gift to the rest of us.
Oh, and here's an assignment, for those who may have that secret wish (Valerie). Take the walk and then write a poem or mini-essay based on your observations and meditations.
Frost has obviously provided us with many extraordinary examples of this practice, but here's mine (one I wrote for the writer's group almost two years ago).
I've read this piece of advice for writers from many different experts, and I can attest that, at least in my experience, it is wonderfully sound counsel.
Again and again I find that when I am stuck or scared or bored or all three in my writing, or in my life in general, the very best thing I can do is walk, alone and without haste or great intention. I don't have any idea why it works. But it does. Somehow. It seems to make space, beyond my tight efforts. Often even when I'm walking an idea comes for how to solve a problem in the poem, or suddenly I know what I really wanted to say, or I am aware of an image that comes from deeper than my thoughts and is truer, too.
The wonderful poet Robert Frost took a lot of walks, and that is immediately obvious in his poetry. Here are some links to some of those poems.
http://www.ketzle.com/frost/#frostlinks
If you are an artist, (and you are), let this be my Christmas gift to you... permission, even urging, to take a walk. Meandering and solitary, restful and awake... I believe then this will be the seedlings for your gift to the rest of us.
Oh, and here's an assignment, for those who may have that secret wish (Valerie). Take the walk and then write a poem or mini-essay based on your observations and meditations.
Frost has obviously provided us with many extraordinary examples of this practice, but here's mine (one I wrote for the writer's group almost two years ago).
-After the Long Rain-
The air was threaded with fog
and the blades and the leaves lined
with drops solemn as pewter.
The river was slate-colored and moving
fast and high and in so many swirling currents
that it looked like skeins of cord,
all knotted and pulling, flung between the gray-green banks.
And above the water, just above the surface,
were the swallows--with their arrowed wings and streaming tails.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them,
all along the rivers’ bends and turns.
They were swooping, in and out, out and in,
darting, reeling, spinning between and among each other,
as if they were a thousand bright-black shuttles,
weaving a silver cloth
of light and air and water
on the loom of this new day.
and the blades and the leaves lined
with drops solemn as pewter.
The river was slate-colored and moving
fast and high and in so many swirling currents
that it looked like skeins of cord,
all knotted and pulling, flung between the gray-green banks.
And above the water, just above the surface,
were the swallows--with their arrowed wings and streaming tails.
There were hundreds, maybe thousands of them,
all along the rivers’ bends and turns.
They were swooping, in and out, out and in,
darting, reeling, spinning between and among each other,
as if they were a thousand bright-black shuttles,
weaving a silver cloth
of light and air and water
on the loom of this new day.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Marvin's Room
I can almost be sure that anyone reading this blog will already know about Imprint Theater Company's current production of Marvin's Room, by Scott McPherson, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to encourage us all to attend a performance and allow our hearts and souls to be met and stirred.
Performances are November 2nd, 3rd, 4th and November 9th, 10th, 11th and November 16th and 18th at Oak Hills Church.
There's also a wonderful opportunity on the Saturday night performances to stay afterwards for a discussion time with the cast and artistic director.
Here's a link to Imprint's website for ticket and show information.
http://www.imprinttheatre.org/
Performances are November 2nd, 3rd, 4th and November 9th, 10th, 11th and November 16th and 18th at Oak Hills Church.
There's also a wonderful opportunity on the Saturday night performances to stay afterwards for a discussion time with the cast and artistic director.
Here's a link to Imprint's website for ticket and show information.
http://www.imprinttheatre.org/
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
C.S. Lewis Book Club
Almost immediately after posting about C.S. Lewis' novel, Till We Have Faces, I learned of a new book club centered around the writings of Lewis.
The group, led by Erik and Selena Grendahl, will meet in the Library at Oak Hills Church at 11 AM every other Sunday, beginning Sept. 30. I'm quite certain attending Oak Hills is not a requisite for participating.
Although I can't attend the meetings, this sounds like a great opportunity for stimulating reading, thought and conversation of the best and most delightful variety.
The group, led by Erik and Selena Grendahl, will meet in the Library at Oak Hills Church at 11 AM every other Sunday, beginning Sept. 30. I'm quite certain attending Oak Hills is not a requisite for participating.
Although I can't attend the meetings, this sounds like a great opportunity for stimulating reading, thought and conversation of the best and most delightful variety.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Till We Have Faces
I recently reread C.S. Lewis' novel, Till We Have Faces. This has long been my favorite Lewis-work (and that is truly saying something). Every time I read it I'm struck by the incredible skill and insight he had to have to draw the main character of this novel and tell her story. This time, I was more aware than ever of how this story is the story of a spiritual formation.
I'm going to talk about the novel's plot and characters below... so, if you are the type who believes a story is spoiled if you know what happens, don't read on!
The novel is a retelling of the classic Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. (Which if I understand anything...is the story of the God of Love and the Human Soul.......)
In the myth, Psyche (one of three sisters) is a girl so beautiful and lovely that the goddess Venus is jealous of her. For this reason, her father is forced to sacrifice her on a mountain. There Venus' son, Cupid, takes her as his bride, and keeps her in a secret castle. They live in total bliss, with only one strange caveat--she is forbidden to look upon his face. In the myth, the two sisters come to visit Pscyhe, and they become so jealous of her castle and her life that they convince her she really must see her husband's face. So, foolishly, Psyche lights a lamp the next night. The ravishing beauty of her lover is revealed, but a drop of lamp oil awakes him, and Psyche is forced into a long and perilous exile.
C.S. Lewis retells this story from the point of view of the oldest sister, an ugly but earnest girl named Orual. His greatest departure from the original is to make Psyche's castle invisible to Orual, which changes the entire story. For now Orual's dilemma and the choices she makes become much more ambivalent and fraught, and much more like our own dilemmas and choices.
And her story sounds very much like our own stories.
The book is her telling of her own story. The first two thirds are her first version, and in it she rails against the misery and the lovelessness and loneliness she has felt after the loss of her beloved sister, Psyche. She shakes her fist at the gods and argues her case against them. But in the second version, her story changes. She says she must write this second book because "I know so much more than I did about the woman who wrote it."
Let this be a warning to anyone who sets to write honestly:
"What began the change was the very writing itself. Let no one lightly set about such a work. Memory, once waked, will play the tyrant. I found I must set down...passions and thoughts of my own which I had clean forgotten. The past which I wrote down was not the past that I thought I had (all these years) been remembering.".....
Throughout this second version, she comes to terms with who she really is and what has truly motivated her choices and created her life. The awareness, the consciousness is incredibly painful (especially for any honest reader). As I read it, I feel like I'm walking through the story of my own spiritual formation, although I haven't gotten that far in understanding and faith.
For one example, she comes to such a profound understanding about the demanding, soul-sucking possessivenes that she had called love... I can imagine this is what it would be like for me to truly lose some of my own strongest attachments. She says:
"when the craving went [for a certain man she had been obsessed with] nearly all that I called myself went with it. It was as if my whole soul had been one tooth and now that tooth was drawn. I was a gap."
There are many other incredible passages in the book. I was floored again and again, and my dream is to have a discussion group on this book someday. But the absolute best lines for me are the ones from which the title is taken.
All her adult life, the ugly Orual has been veiled. This has protected her and given her a kind of mysterious strength, for others' fear her and cannot know her. She also veils and walls off her true self. She veils herself in her work and busy-ness. But everything changes when she finally makes her complaint to the gods and actually hears what she's been saying all her life.
She says hearing her own complaint was all the answer she needed from the gods. "To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean."
"When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"
This is an incredible question. One I could ponder and pray over for a long time. But the wonderful news is that Orual and Psyche's stories end (like our own stories shall) with something far better than sheer justice and truth.
I hope some of you will read it for yourselves. And I'd love to know if and how Orual's story resonates with you.
I'm going to talk about the novel's plot and characters below... so, if you are the type who believes a story is spoiled if you know what happens, don't read on!
The novel is a retelling of the classic Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. (Which if I understand anything...is the story of the God of Love and the Human Soul.......)
In the myth, Psyche (one of three sisters) is a girl so beautiful and lovely that the goddess Venus is jealous of her. For this reason, her father is forced to sacrifice her on a mountain. There Venus' son, Cupid, takes her as his bride, and keeps her in a secret castle. They live in total bliss, with only one strange caveat--she is forbidden to look upon his face. In the myth, the two sisters come to visit Pscyhe, and they become so jealous of her castle and her life that they convince her she really must see her husband's face. So, foolishly, Psyche lights a lamp the next night. The ravishing beauty of her lover is revealed, but a drop of lamp oil awakes him, and Psyche is forced into a long and perilous exile.
C.S. Lewis retells this story from the point of view of the oldest sister, an ugly but earnest girl named Orual. His greatest departure from the original is to make Psyche's castle invisible to Orual, which changes the entire story. For now Orual's dilemma and the choices she makes become much more ambivalent and fraught, and much more like our own dilemmas and choices.
And her story sounds very much like our own stories.
The book is her telling of her own story. The first two thirds are her first version, and in it she rails against the misery and the lovelessness and loneliness she has felt after the loss of her beloved sister, Psyche. She shakes her fist at the gods and argues her case against them. But in the second version, her story changes. She says she must write this second book because "I know so much more than I did about the woman who wrote it."
Let this be a warning to anyone who sets to write honestly:
"What began the change was the very writing itself. Let no one lightly set about such a work. Memory, once waked, will play the tyrant. I found I must set down...passions and thoughts of my own which I had clean forgotten. The past which I wrote down was not the past that I thought I had (all these years) been remembering.".....
Throughout this second version, she comes to terms with who she really is and what has truly motivated her choices and created her life. The awareness, the consciousness is incredibly painful (especially for any honest reader). As I read it, I feel like I'm walking through the story of my own spiritual formation, although I haven't gotten that far in understanding and faith.
For one example, she comes to such a profound understanding about the demanding, soul-sucking possessivenes that she had called love... I can imagine this is what it would be like for me to truly lose some of my own strongest attachments. She says:
"when the craving went [for a certain man she had been obsessed with] nearly all that I called myself went with it. It was as if my whole soul had been one tooth and now that tooth was drawn. I was a gap."
There are many other incredible passages in the book. I was floored again and again, and my dream is to have a discussion group on this book someday. But the absolute best lines for me are the ones from which the title is taken.
All her adult life, the ugly Orual has been veiled. This has protected her and given her a kind of mysterious strength, for others' fear her and cannot know her. She also veils and walls off her true self. She veils herself in her work and busy-ness. But everything changes when she finally makes her complaint to the gods and actually hears what she's been saying all her life.
She says hearing her own complaint was all the answer she needed from the gods. "To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean."
"When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"
This is an incredible question. One I could ponder and pray over for a long time. But the wonderful news is that Orual and Psyche's stories end (like our own stories shall) with something far better than sheer justice and truth.
I hope some of you will read it for yourselves. And I'd love to know if and how Orual's story resonates with you.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Fear and Wonder
This weekend Pastor David Holcomb preached about "Wonder." He made the marvelous point that the opposite of wonder is boredom. He said that our cultural norm is boredom and its offspring-- mindless entertainment. And he suggested these are symptoms of practical atheism and materialism, and a soul that is asleep.
To the extent that I have moved from boredom to wonder (and this movement has only been a tiny start, and some days far less of a start than others), I have recognized boredom being replaced by a new feeling I haven't made peace with--a feeling of near paralyzing fear.
I'm not the only one. Again and again, when I talk to people about making art, or writing, or just daring to really come alive (and thus live in wonder), they speak to me about fears. But this is not only in my little corner of the world; when I read about making art or about facing the soul, the same words also come up over and over: "anxiousness, fear, anxiety, dread."
I hear many explanations for this creeping anxiety and fear: our profound insecurities, a fear of being misunderstood, fear of judgements from ourselves and from others, fear of releasing emotions long buried, fear of not being "Christian enough," fear of wasting our time, even fear of our own pride if we acheive some status through our art.
I can relate to every one of these fears and more. They plague me. They oppress me. And I think they are each worth exploring--in conversations, in books, and on this blog. But as I listened to Dave's sermon, I had a different thought.
It was a little idea....and my fear is it's a crazy idea...completely off-base...but let me just explore it with you. My thought was, "Of course we're afraid. Fear is the most natural response for souls on the cusp of wonder."
Think about it. Every time someone in the Bible encounters a forceful taste of the wonder of God's Kingdom...a visit by angels, a miracle of Jesus, a vision of God's glory... the immediate, uncontrolled, unmeditated response is terror.
I think this is because in a moment of wonder comes the recognition that the universe is not what I thought it was. It's bigger---more beautiful, more terrible, more real, more alive, more wild than I will ever comprehend, and certainly beyond anything I can ever hope to control. And so my life is not what I thought. All that I based my life on, subconciously and consciously, has shifted. It's an earthquake, of sorts.
So, here's my little idea:
We all feel this profound insecurity about making art. But behind this insecurity, perhaps, is our very self's fear of loss of control. It's our fear of wonder. For to dare to make art is to dare to move into the world of wonder---to marvel at the largeness of our own souls, to marvel at the truth and beauty gleaming and flaming around us in every person and every blade of glass.
And if we move in that direction, we will have to give up all those ideas of security and insecurity completely. They will become meaningless and thus useless to us. Did we think we acheived our own security by hiding? By pretending we were in control? By imagining that we could manage others' feelings and thoughts and opinions about us?
The judgements we fear from others...their strongest praise, their greatest condemnation....these too will be just as meaningless. For what can we do but agree with Jesus' words to the rich, young ruler:"Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone."
The fears of facing our shame or pride (which are two sides of the same fallacy--that our actions will guarantee we merit condemnation or praise) will also become irrelevant. This life, this world and our place in it is not our story--it is too wonderful for us.
The threat of our emotions overwhelming us is very real. But, isn't that a fear of facing the large, unknown reality of ourselves and God's wonderous work in creating us?
Isn't the world starting to quake under our feet? We won't have feelings or words or images or music strong enough to describe this terrifyingly beautiful and strong and alive universe we've been made a part of. How can we not fear this seismic disruption?
But then there's something more. Isn't there? This is what I have not yet been able to experience in any fullness that satisfies me. But again and again I think about those words, "Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. It is I."
Because if what our observations and feelings suggest is true... if what our art reveals is true... if what those moments of wonder demand is true... and we're not in control, and our attempts to acheive an externally judged "good" are meaningless, and if this universe is so much much more than the physical and the human systems set in place, then.... just beyond the fear is hope.
For I believe this is the longing and deepest desire of every artist (whether or not we are conscious of it)-- the hunger to BE in the presence of the One who is Wonderful beyond all our hungers, and all our fears.
To the extent that I have moved from boredom to wonder (and this movement has only been a tiny start, and some days far less of a start than others), I have recognized boredom being replaced by a new feeling I haven't made peace with--a feeling of near paralyzing fear.
I'm not the only one. Again and again, when I talk to people about making art, or writing, or just daring to really come alive (and thus live in wonder), they speak to me about fears. But this is not only in my little corner of the world; when I read about making art or about facing the soul, the same words also come up over and over: "anxiousness, fear, anxiety, dread."
I hear many explanations for this creeping anxiety and fear: our profound insecurities, a fear of being misunderstood, fear of judgements from ourselves and from others, fear of releasing emotions long buried, fear of not being "Christian enough," fear of wasting our time, even fear of our own pride if we acheive some status through our art.
I can relate to every one of these fears and more. They plague me. They oppress me. And I think they are each worth exploring--in conversations, in books, and on this blog. But as I listened to Dave's sermon, I had a different thought.
It was a little idea....and my fear is it's a crazy idea...completely off-base...but let me just explore it with you. My thought was, "Of course we're afraid. Fear is the most natural response for souls on the cusp of wonder."
Think about it. Every time someone in the Bible encounters a forceful taste of the wonder of God's Kingdom...a visit by angels, a miracle of Jesus, a vision of God's glory... the immediate, uncontrolled, unmeditated response is terror.
I think this is because in a moment of wonder comes the recognition that the universe is not what I thought it was. It's bigger---more beautiful, more terrible, more real, more alive, more wild than I will ever comprehend, and certainly beyond anything I can ever hope to control. And so my life is not what I thought. All that I based my life on, subconciously and consciously, has shifted. It's an earthquake, of sorts.
So, here's my little idea:
We all feel this profound insecurity about making art. But behind this insecurity, perhaps, is our very self's fear of loss of control. It's our fear of wonder. For to dare to make art is to dare to move into the world of wonder---to marvel at the largeness of our own souls, to marvel at the truth and beauty gleaming and flaming around us in every person and every blade of glass.
And if we move in that direction, we will have to give up all those ideas of security and insecurity completely. They will become meaningless and thus useless to us. Did we think we acheived our own security by hiding? By pretending we were in control? By imagining that we could manage others' feelings and thoughts and opinions about us?
The judgements we fear from others...their strongest praise, their greatest condemnation....these too will be just as meaningless. For what can we do but agree with Jesus' words to the rich, young ruler:"Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone."
The fears of facing our shame or pride (which are two sides of the same fallacy--that our actions will guarantee we merit condemnation or praise) will also become irrelevant. This life, this world and our place in it is not our story--it is too wonderful for us.
The threat of our emotions overwhelming us is very real. But, isn't that a fear of facing the large, unknown reality of ourselves and God's wonderous work in creating us?
Isn't the world starting to quake under our feet? We won't have feelings or words or images or music strong enough to describe this terrifyingly beautiful and strong and alive universe we've been made a part of. How can we not fear this seismic disruption?
But then there's something more. Isn't there? This is what I have not yet been able to experience in any fullness that satisfies me. But again and again I think about those words, "Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. It is I."
Because if what our observations and feelings suggest is true... if what our art reveals is true... if what those moments of wonder demand is true... and we're not in control, and our attempts to acheive an externally judged "good" are meaningless, and if this universe is so much much more than the physical and the human systems set in place, then.... just beyond the fear is hope.
For I believe this is the longing and deepest desire of every artist (whether or not we are conscious of it)-- the hunger to BE in the presence of the One who is Wonderful beyond all our hungers, and all our fears.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Writing with William Stafford
A few entries back, I introduced a poem by William Stafford. He has greatly influenced me--not only through his beautifully unique and strong poetry, but also through his philosophy of writing, which was full of generosity and wonder. I think he has an extremely insightful understanding of our spiritual nature and how we can become more open to God's voice. I'd like to tell you a little about him here, with some quotes taken from his book, Crossing Unmarked Snow. The highlights are (obviously) mine. You can read more of his wonderful poetry at http://www.williamstafford.org/spoems/index.html.
Stafford was born in 1914 in Hutchinson, Kansas. He attended the University of Kansas, and took active part in the early struggles of what would later be the Civil Rights movement. He was drafted in 1940, and served as a conscientious objector throughout the war (in work camps in Illinois, Arkansas and California). During this time, Stafford began a life-long discipline of rising very early to write for several hours every morning, and he wrote many poems during this time. He said everyone can be free around four in the morning.
He often talked about his writing process, which he claimed to value above any one poem he produced. He said that in those early writing sessions, his practice was to write whatever occurred to him, whatever located him.
As one interviewer put it, his writing process was one of “extreme receptivity,” which Stafford said acted as “a defense against being stampeded by the current, intentional engagement with what other people think is important. It’s very subjective, but it is the kind of subjectivity that makes you available for what is (making) a valid, actual, individual impression on a human being: yourself. I’m afraid that getting published has often pushed me toward trying to repeat what has succeeded, and I don’t want to do that. I want to stay as trusting and innocent as I was when I first started to write…”
A hunger to be “lost” often comes up in his poems. He spoke about that desire to be lost in his writing process: “…if you’re lost enough, then the experience of now is your guide to what comes next. None of us knows what comes the next second. We manage to survive in our lives by staying inside the bubble of our assumed self-sufficiency. That’s nice, cozy—but as a writer, as a thinker, as maybe a mediator, I have a sense of being in a set of circumstances that’s much more wilderness than most people assume.”
After the war, he continued his education and began teaching, finally setting at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon in 1956. He didn’t believe in overtly complimenting or criticizing students’ writings. He preferred to tell them where he “was with them,” and where he hadn't been able to follow them. He wanted the goal to be locating the self, not writing for praise.
“I feel trapped in a society, and in a school system, that persuades individuals that all their activities are goal-oriented towards some goal that doesn’t have anything to do with how they feel. In the arts it has to do with how you feel. So trust what occurs to you. And you’ve just got to do that. If somebody else doesn’t like it that way, you can make it the way they like it if you want to, but it won’t be art.”
He was stubbornly non-elitist in his ideas of education and writing, and claimed not to be overly concerned with the quality of any of his own poems.
“What is quality? It depends on where you stand, whether you feel you’re limited or not. I feel I’m limited. I feel other people are limited. This idea, whatever standard American writers have reached is estimable and other standards are not, is a relative matter. In a way, I could say I’m not that ambitious, but another way I could put it is I’m a lot more ambitious than that. I don’t want to reach the standard that American poetry has reached. Nothing less than everything, that’s what I would like to find by keeping going. The idea that you could cut back a little bit and thus be esteemed is not as important to me as if you could keep on being headlong, you might get beyond being esteemed. I’d like that. So maybe I’m more ambitious. God has got bigger plans than the standards of American poetry, no matter what those standards are.”
“I’m suspicious of the ability of any fallible human being to erect some kind of standard and say, this is it. The realm of possibility is more glorious than that--…the closing in on some kind of hierarchy is a function of the limitedness of the judges more than it is the quality of the work….”
“For me writing is invading that area of “what am I missing?” rather than “Does this reach a standard?” You live your life by the feeling of satisfaction a day at a time. Those who try to say, well, at least, no matter how grim this makes you feel to do this drudgery writing …. at least you have your accomplishment in the end. I don’t feel that way at all. I feel the other way around. At least you have pleasant days. You have good feelings about your life. As far as what I’ve accomplished, I don’t know.”
Stafford's first volume of poetry was published in 1960, and his second volume, Traveling Through the Dark received the National Book Award in 1962. He wrote poems steadily the rest of his life. He died in 1993.
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