The Advent of a Poem by Doris Kareva
A poem appears out of nowhere, it seems, the same as a snowflake – a singular crystalline structure is formed by a concurrence of conditions, for it only to melt and evaporate once those change.
It is that natural crystallinity that makes poetry valuable for me. Even if a poem has arisen unexpectedly and unintentionally, burst forward like a hot splurge of lava, it is always structured in a way that is organic and pertinent to its moment of birth. That is what distinguishes actual poetry from everything that is merely presented as such. A poem incorporates an autonomic and marvelous order, a heightened intensity that, like graphite in a pen, recalls its blood-relation, a diamond.
*
There are those that claim poems to subsist of feelings, and those that see them consisting of words. Both words and feelings are necessary, the same as a warp and weft are equally necessary for the carpet-weaving. But for a carpet to fly, or for a poem to really come to life, its airy web needs to contain something extra – an unexplained vacancy, the resounding silence of an expanse that can only serve to sharpen one’s senses. There is no place for chatter here, the chaffs of words rustle out through the meshes. It is only poetry’s well-honed silence, the bright grain that remains, and can reach into our hearts.
*
For me, the seed of a poem is its rhythm. A concurrence of two words discharges a mild electric shock in my consciousness that incites me, and settles me at the same time. I become alert like a fisherman whose fishing-line sinks. The field formed by the repetition of that uncommon bond between two words will pull other words magnetically towards them.
Some of them may bounce back as vocally unsuitable, while others start to resonate with them, like tiny splashes in an immaterial circuit. Such synergy will bring about ecstatic, multi-existential, multidirectional time – the images, the associations, the pictures unleashed by these words will oscillate at such speed that thought can never grasp that vibrational abundance. And that is when I realize: it has happened. A poem is there.
Such realization is spiritual and bodily at once. It is a peculiarly arousing experience that jolts all the different frequencies of one’s being, it is a kind of trance that has one’s senses operating at multiple levels of imagination. The world opens up in every direction. I am sure musicians and artists know of it as well, not that it’s the sole claim of those worshipping words. But it is a kind of a shamanistic journey – retrieval of a word from beyond.
*
Poetry has no purpose. It need neither console nor amuse, pose reverence nor be instructive or right. It need not dwell in originality, play tricks on anyone or, perhaps, provoke them. It need not exert pressure to establish itself.
A poem leaves you changed by the encounter. I am not able to quite explain what electricity is, but I will still know once it strikes me. I feel the same about the art of poetry. At times a fully balanced work that conforms to all the poetic canons and is not at all dissimilar to high poetics, does still not read as poetry, but feels counterfeit instead. At the same time, a random, even a clumsy line may produce meaning that had previously been vague. Any genuine sentence enlivens, it is pure oxygen, the joy of freedom.
*
Poetry is everlastingly young. A real flower withers while a fake one persists, but poetry acts in the opposite manner. Fake poetry is destined to be soon outdated, perhaps even queer, and have naturally nothing else to do but fall and be forgotten. At the same time, the living trunk of a tree will always present new buds to blend into its crown, past their tentative bravado and rebellion.
Centuries-old words, including those from distant cultures, may suddenly sound as fresh as any that we have, astonish us with their contemporaneity, for they imbibe the spirit of lightness, and vivacity.
*
Poetry’s playful lightness, its agility and simultaneous astonishing endurance remind me of the translucent matter that the spiders use to weave their webs. Once caught inside the web of poetry, one will stay to sway there for a lifetime. To feel emptiness storm through you at a quite unimaginable speed is an adrenaline boost not hard to get addicted to.
Poetry’s natural majesty, its amalgam of truth and grace, may affect one beautifully, upliftingly, much like a rainbow or sunrise or sunset – but it can just as well shock and shatter, bring everything to the ground, like a fireball or tornado.
Poetry possesses genes of beauty, as well as those of truth, it comprises secrecy as well as danger, the same as every other force of nature.
*
Poetry is at once a veil, and how it drops – the bewitching moment of knowing.
The advent of a poem can be sublime, a majestic as well as commonplace occasion, an Apollonian as well as Dionysian experience. It may occur in the shape of its own negation, cloak itself in princely, just as well as beggarly robes, dress in a king’s or buffoon’s attire. But its quivering magic power will reveal itself to those willing to recognize it. As befitting to a fairy tale.
It is that natural crystallinity that makes poetry valuable for me. Even if a poem has arisen unexpectedly and unintentionally, burst forward like a hot splurge of lava, it is always structured in a way that is organic and pertinent to its moment of birth. That is what distinguishes actual poetry from everything that is merely presented as such. A poem incorporates an autonomic and marvelous order, a heightened intensity that, like graphite in a pen, recalls its blood-relation, a diamond.
*
There are those that claim poems to subsist of feelings, and those that see them consisting of words. Both words and feelings are necessary, the same as a warp and weft are equally necessary for the carpet-weaving. But for a carpet to fly, or for a poem to really come to life, its airy web needs to contain something extra – an unexplained vacancy, the resounding silence of an expanse that can only serve to sharpen one’s senses. There is no place for chatter here, the chaffs of words rustle out through the meshes. It is only poetry’s well-honed silence, the bright grain that remains, and can reach into our hearts.
*
For me, the seed of a poem is its rhythm. A concurrence of two words discharges a mild electric shock in my consciousness that incites me, and settles me at the same time. I become alert like a fisherman whose fishing-line sinks. The field formed by the repetition of that uncommon bond between two words will pull other words magnetically towards them.
Some of them may bounce back as vocally unsuitable, while others start to resonate with them, like tiny splashes in an immaterial circuit. Such synergy will bring about ecstatic, multi-existential, multidirectional time – the images, the associations, the pictures unleashed by these words will oscillate at such speed that thought can never grasp that vibrational abundance. And that is when I realize: it has happened. A poem is there.
Such realization is spiritual and bodily at once. It is a peculiarly arousing experience that jolts all the different frequencies of one’s being, it is a kind of trance that has one’s senses operating at multiple levels of imagination. The world opens up in every direction. I am sure musicians and artists know of it as well, not that it’s the sole claim of those worshipping words. But it is a kind of a shamanistic journey – retrieval of a word from beyond.
*
Poetry has no purpose. It need neither console nor amuse, pose reverence nor be instructive or right. It need not dwell in originality, play tricks on anyone or, perhaps, provoke them. It need not exert pressure to establish itself.
A poem leaves you changed by the encounter. I am not able to quite explain what electricity is, but I will still know once it strikes me. I feel the same about the art of poetry. At times a fully balanced work that conforms to all the poetic canons and is not at all dissimilar to high poetics, does still not read as poetry, but feels counterfeit instead. At the same time, a random, even a clumsy line may produce meaning that had previously been vague. Any genuine sentence enlivens, it is pure oxygen, the joy of freedom.
*
Poetry is everlastingly young. A real flower withers while a fake one persists, but poetry acts in the opposite manner. Fake poetry is destined to be soon outdated, perhaps even queer, and have naturally nothing else to do but fall and be forgotten. At the same time, the living trunk of a tree will always present new buds to blend into its crown, past their tentative bravado and rebellion.
Centuries-old words, including those from distant cultures, may suddenly sound as fresh as any that we have, astonish us with their contemporaneity, for they imbibe the spirit of lightness, and vivacity.
*
Poetry’s playful lightness, its agility and simultaneous astonishing endurance remind me of the translucent matter that the spiders use to weave their webs. Once caught inside the web of poetry, one will stay to sway there for a lifetime. To feel emptiness storm through you at a quite unimaginable speed is an adrenaline boost not hard to get addicted to.
Poetry’s natural majesty, its amalgam of truth and grace, may affect one beautifully, upliftingly, much like a rainbow or sunrise or sunset – but it can just as well shock and shatter, bring everything to the ground, like a fireball or tornado.
Poetry possesses genes of beauty, as well as those of truth, it comprises secrecy as well as danger, the same as every other force of nature.
*
Poetry is at once a veil, and how it drops – the bewitching moment of knowing.
The advent of a poem can be sublime, a majestic as well as commonplace occasion, an Apollonian as well as Dionysian experience. It may occur in the shape of its own negation, cloak itself in princely, just as well as beggarly robes, dress in a king’s or buffoon’s attire. But its quivering magic power will reveal itself to those willing to recognize it. As befitting to a fairy tale.
Doris Kareva (b. 1958) is an Estonian poet, essayist and translator. She has received multiple honours and literary awards in Estonia, including twice the National Culture Award. She works as an editor at Estonian Writers Union monthly “Looming” (“Creation”), in 2005 a collection of hers “The Shape of Time” was published in English translation by Arc in the UK.
