Though leaves come late against the door,
There’s no one asks to know
Of each where each has gone before
But they will come and go.
As senseless as to ask the brook
The reason for its visit,
As though the waters undertook
To be what water isn’t.
Permit the stone to be a stone
The heart to be the heart—
Some things are better left unknown
Together or apart.
May 22, 2024
by me, Patrick Gillespie
I’ve been struggling with a back injury (along with a passage in WistThistle, Along the Way). That’s made my writerly pace hard to keep. It’s also meant cancelling carpentry jobs. That’s okay. My heart has gone out of anything but writing. I owe my readers two posts on Emily Dickinson—one comparing Dickinson and Shakespeare—but in the meantime here’s a poem for your enjoyment.
PoemShape 
Just for comparison’s sake, read The Knowledge of Stone on page 49 of Atheists and Empty Spaces. Maybe someday, we should think about a Coleridge/Wordsworth-type collab–interesting similarities and interesting differences. This is the type of poetry that can be read every day, any day, and any time. Unlike the following verse from a poet I might ask you too have a gander at in the future. This poet’s work has been called by one critic “…inventive, accurate, and lyrical…” This is one of the better poems I have read of this particular poet. What think’st thou?
Silver salt stains into amber.
Virgin to the north
under the zodiac in the rose,
we have read your instructions
(yes fire, yes burn). Windows
tell stories across the walls.
Orion’s sword begins life.
Stars brew like glass, copper
to ruby, manganese to purple,
cobalt to blue. Iron makes
green, sweetness and light.
Blow, cut, slit, press,
my bone, my schist Venus.
We work under you.
Blue super giants’ elements
get heavier in the core
until they reach iron and cave in,
and so of course we fear.
We read the stain, the heavy
burn, as iris unfurling face
and bells. Let us all be full
of grace. Night falls like always
in marble cascade. The sun pushes
to morning. Then it cools.
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Okay— So— I’m confused. Did you send me Atheists and Empty Spaces? I have, from you, Essential Words, The Purple and Blue Collection, The Joy of Shadows, and The Mercy Killing, but I don’t have Atheists. Is this poem your own? The one from page 49? I can’t tell if you’re being sardonic!
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Anyway, as to the poem— I once wrote a poem similar to this (in spirit) and showed it to the poet Thomas Lux, (one I wrote as a teenager) and he gave me the best advice I’ve ever gotten on the art of writing poetry. He said, There’s a difference between writing poetry and writing poetically. That was it. That was all I needed from Mr. Lux. That got me started down the right road. I would say that this very much applies to the poem above. :)
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Yes, I sent Atheist and Empty Spaces (not with this last set) to you a year or year and a half ago. Some of your comments were (and I mostly remember the negative) about it was mostly light verse, the endnotes were more interesting than the poems and would work better as footnotes, and the archaic use of words like “upon” for metrical purposes was distracting. Perhaps, you have gotten rid of it. I hang onto books, even the ones that I don’t like. I understand if you are not that way. Here is a link if you need help remembering the cover: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Atheists_and_Empty_Spaces/5IyEEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
So, nope! No, sarcasm of any type intended. If you still have the copy of A & E, The Knowledge of Stone is on page 49. If you don’t, I could send you another copy if you wanted one.
The poem above/below/wherever it ends up is not mine. The poet is someone who has long been at the center of poetry in Arkansas. She is a colleague from a different school who has read on my campus at least once, maybe twice. She is roundly and soundly praised here in the state, and the praise has very much gone to her head (It seems to me.). I have always thought that her work was very average prose converted into verse-length lines, but I have never written or told that to anyone besides some of my co-workers on campus. Anyhow, this poem is by someone who is in the middle of a “successful” career whose local reputation continues to grow–and I don’t know how or why.
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I wonder where it is? I wouldn’t have gotten rid of it. Separating me from books? Imagine a Civil War field amputation. That’s what it takes. A dozen strong men, something to bite down on, and a man with a quick saw. I’ll find it.
As to your colleague— I mean, I fully understand why her poetry would be popular. She writes poetically. She’s mastered all the signalling that people associate with poetry, and the problem is that very, very, very few people actually know anything about poetry. She writes the equivalent of pop music (as do most? all? successful contemporary poets) — all melody and no harmony. Just a couple nights ago I watched the movie Yesterday. The movie’s premise is that something shifts the world into a parallel reality where the Beatles never existed — only one otherwise mediocre singer/songwriter remembers their songs. He starts to perform Beatles songs and, lo & behold, he turns into a superstar. It was fun to hear these new arrangements. It reminded me that what separates the Beatles from every other rock group is their genius for harmony. It’s what separates Bach from his peers. Bach was once challenged to a friendly organ-duel by a local organist (who didn’t know he was Bach). Bach modulated to such far-flung keys that the challenging organist gave up—couldn’t find his way out of Bach’s harmonies. He said to Bach: “Either you’re an angel sent by God or you’re Johann Sebastian Bach”. It’s what separates Mozart from his peers. The highest praise given Mozart was to say that he was the first composer to unite Italian melody with German harmony. But people love melody. Then as now, a mediocre composer/songwriter who is otherwise a gifted melodist will succeed. Take Taylor Swift. Her harmonies are dull and predictable, but her melodies and lyrics are catchy. She’s like the JC Bach (the London Bach) of our time. He was also an incredible melodist but had only a limited gift for harmony. But a gift for melody is what you need and, for a time, he was a huge hit. I listened to Billie Eillish on Stephen Colbert the other night. She talked about how she grew up in a musical family where everyone was always harmonizing, then she performed her song and her harmonies were just as clichéd and predictable as Swift’s. She can write a great melody though.
What harmony is to music, meter, rhyme and metaphor (figurative language) are to poetry. They’re like counterpoint. And what melody is to music, subject matter is to poetry. Your colleague writes melodically (as do almost all modern poets) and people get that (that’s the whole point of free verse) but her grasp of poetic counterpoint is nonexistent. But, as with music, what people get, straightaway, is a catchy melody.
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Just re-read The Knowledge of Stone. There’s a glancing resemblance between the two. :)
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You know that I am not going anywhere. I’m sure you will find it.
Your assessment of the poet’s work seems appropriate. You are probably correct about a modern audience’s taste for melody, if subject is melody. I guess I need more than that in poetry.
I have never watched Yesterday. I probably should. I love some of the Beatles stuff, yet I have always wondered at the critical praise heaped upon them. I daresay that they shaped the world in greater ways than any poets of the same era–and continue to do so more than any poets. It is funny that the individual band members were financially successful after the break-up, and Paul wrote some iconic music with Wings, but only John wrote and performed anything that equaled the harmonies of The Beatles–and he was stuck with Yoko Ono squalling in the background.
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Paul stated that he deliberately avoided the harmonies of the Beatles after their break-up, which is arguably why none of his later music compares. To draw an analogy, it was like Michael Jordan quitting basketball to play baseball. And I agree with your estimation of Lennon. And squalling Ono. I was still working at Tower Records when Ono released her Onobox CD box set. It sat on our front counter, collecting dust, right up to the day that Tower went bankrupt. Nobody but nobody was interested in her caterwauling.
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Wow! You worked at Tower Records? There has to be an interesting story there.
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Not sure what is going on here, but WordPress keeps telling me to sign in and then deletes my comment–or you may two comments from me. I don’t see either of them.
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It’s because you’re not “signed in” somehow? It’s treating you as an anonymous respondent, which means I have to approve it first.
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That is me above. Somehow today, I have become Anonymous. You know who it is.
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Yes I do. :)
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Well, I never signed out, but it must be working now. I see my little books sign.
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Patrick, I came down with COVID last weekend. Its ‘fog’ appeared only late yesterday afternoon, its journey having nothing to do with ‘cat’s feet’ so much as the galumphing nightmare of multi-ton, leaden, vehicle-crushing footfalls of a quadrupeded Cyclops.
That said, I felt nothing but delight in your poem. It’s elements are accessible, but the rendered whole is spiced with enigmas that had me retracing my steps to reveal new dimensions of what I’d missed the first, second or third trip through.
Thank you, Patrick. Even in my altered state, this really worked for me. Thank you again.
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The fellow I carpentered with for decades (he’s almost your age) came down with Covid a few weeks ago. Like a middling cold, but his “positive testing” lasted for over a week. Here’s hoping it’s no worse for you.
Your praise for the poem is welcome and much appreciated. :)
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