Poet's Petard #7 – August, 2021

Poetry as Divine Madness

It took me years of writing poems before I dared to say “I am a Poet” (with a capitol 'P'). Not out of simple modesty was I holding back – but a deep respect for the art, and also a kind of mild terror (?) at what Poetry does to a poet.

​For example: signing the I Am A Poet contract means you agree to the following:

1. “A poet is useless due to being permanently usurped by love.” (Thoreau, but I can't find the exact reference)
2. Plato was probably right that poetry is a distinct kind of divine madness,
   
3. and you further cheerfully acknowledge “Poetry is not after all a civilized art”  (Peter Levi, in his introduction to the translation of Nikos Gatsos' poem Amorgos, tr. by Sally Purcell)
   

​Now you're good to go, having taken the vaccine that will allow you to function inside a state of Divine Madness without losing your mind. You will be able to sing out to whatever muse or divinity may be guiding your writing life: 

 “Enlarge thou me in Love, that with the inward palate of my heart
I may taste how sweet it is to love, and in Love to dissolve
and to bathe myself. Let me be holden by Love, rising above myself
in excessive fervor and wonder.”
~Thomas a' Kempis

​As a rebellious teenager I read this and thought, “Wait a minute! 'fervor' and 'wonder' are already excessive. You mean Poetry teaches me how to be extreme on purpose without being accused of disobedience, lying or lunacy? Yes, and

​Poetry eventually starts demanding you to live up to the part of the contract that says, “make use of this
wild excess you have agreed to nurture inside yourself.” As poet Roya Marsh says, dive deep for

“our DNA
sheet music
at the bottom
of the ocean”

​And in a poem I've never finished, another reminder to Poets:

​“More sky! I need more sky:
                        The thing is
you have to keep yourself so charged up on Beauty
that you cannot – simply
cannot –  think of anything
else.”