The "Narcissistic" Poet

Last Friday I encountered a few choice words from my Creative Writing teacher that I found interesting. He was looking over my poetry, making editing comments about it, asking me what certain things meant or why I put them there. He then told me that, "you can't be imcomprehensible. You need to be accessible."

But what does that really mean?


Let's take a moment to break this down.


As a poet, it is your duty to express yourself, whether yourself be concise, chaotic, peaceful, sick, loving, angry, alive, or dead. Whatever it is that you are in that moment--you must express that.

And poet's are not there to express what they think is accessible. Quite the opposite, actually. Poetry, art--is narcissism. It's replicating something of yourself that others can love, for others to love. It is duplicating yourself for the purpose of enjoyment, for the purpose of awe. Understanding is really only a by-product of the general enjoyment of poetry. Let me explain.

There are many things you consider when writing a poem. For me, meaning hardly comes first-- a feeling comes first. I hardly ever have an ending in mind when I start writing. And why? Because I enjoy poetry, mostly, for how it looks, how it sounds.

The by-product is understanding.

If it sounds like something beautiful, I feel like it is beautiful. If the array of words looks physically beautiful, I feel like it is beautiful. If there is a meaning in it, it is beautiful. But who knows what was going through the poet's head at the time? By the given poem, no one excet the poet.

To say that you must alter your art for the general public--for accessibility--is not only stifling expression, but underestimating the audience. It is saying, "If I don't understand this, no one will." It is blatantly limiting the beauty of poetry.
And all of that feels unnecessary. There is not one meaning in poetry--there's a thousand meanings. There's probably more than a million.

But "it is not necessary to understand--only necessary to love".

I Capture the Castle

I saw the title movie recently and really liked it, although it ended so bittersweetly. Unfortunately, that's life. Altogether, I felt the main character Cassandra was alot like me.. even though I would've picked Henry Cavill/Stephen ANYFRIGGINGDAY over the other guy... but whatevs. lol. The title is so dreeeeamy that I can't get over it! I'll have to read the book, too. :)

All-State's coming up in like, a week.. oh geez, maybe less. It's scary because I always think I have it together, but I really don't. I have so much to practice. :( Sigh. I really hope I do better than I have in previous years. I always try to be proud of myself, and I am most of the time--but I'm a perfectionist. It's a great and terrible thing to be.



But this week in general has been pretty good. Thanksgiving was good, despite the chaos of having mom cook EVERYTHING for the first time in a long time, with Grandma still recovering from her broken hip and that kind of changing everything. But we got around it, and I don't wanna sound like it's her fault, 'cause it's not.

This past month or so in general has been bad, really bad. Just a lot of things happening all at once. My dad had gallbladder surgery after a horrible attack, and that made things better for a while, but recently he had another horrible attack and had to get his appendix out. The ER is never helpful either, as my mom didn't get home 'til 2AM on a school night after hours and hours of waiting. Thankfully he's much better now, but all of this merely happened while other horrible events occurred.. my Uncle that I never met, dying alone and under strange circumstances, and my grandma passing away after struggling for months on end. And not to mention my paternal grandmother's hip and memory issue. It's going pretty fast. I'm scared wondering if she'll remember me much longer.




It's a strange thing watching all your heroes die with time. And I don't just mean family; I mean famous people that somehow become part of who you are---people that seem like they could never die, like Paul McCartney, or Eddie Vedder, Neil Young, or Bob Dylan. And yet, they're people and they are willed to die. We think they're not human. We hope they're not human.

I can't imagine what it was like for my parents to watch their parent(s) pass away. For me, it was someone I barely knew, but to them--it was what they are to me. I can't fathom that day, what it would be like. I don't want to know.


As I was reading Letters to a Young Poet today, it struck me really deeply, and soundly, how much those words were alive. Commonly, we read words like dead things, things that, once passed over, never revive. And when we analyze literature, it's all wrong. We're taught to speed read, to, as quickly as possible, sum up an idea, get the gist, get it over with, and feel smarter. And that's all wrong. Take minutes to read a page, to read a paragraph, a sentence, two words. Because those words are someone else, and now are in you, and you must respect them as if they were rich possessions generously offere to you from another dimension, another time.

Too frequently we read in the dark, with cluttered noise all around. It wasn't 'til today, reading in the utmost silence and daylight, that I realized it.

Blue Roses

Yesterday we read The Glass Menagerie in class. As we were reading the character descriptions, I was really struck by Laura Wingfield--the daughter, and one of the main characters. We were so similar, in fact, that I felt entitled to play her. I raised my hand hesitantly, but another girl who's in drama class took the part at the same moment. Most of the drama kids get picked automatically, because they usually make whatever they're reading very good. Although the other girl did a good job, I felt I could've done better. I left class a little down-hearted. But today she wasn't there. The teacher assigned me the part. It felt a lot more right to me. One of my friends, who played the mother character, said I was perfect for the role, and another of my friends said I did really well with the part.

But now, I just have to wonder if that's a good or bad thing.

I've forgotten to say that really, a good amount of things has happened in these past few weeks! I went to a concert--and not just ANY concert--a (Brandon Heath and) JARS OF CLAY CONCERT. Yeah, SO PRETTY MUCH AMAZING. I seriously am in love with Stephen Mason. He's hysterical. Dan Haseltine is an amazing guy. And really, so is Charlie Lowell, and Matt Odmark, and that entire band. Everytime I listen to them, I think of so many wonderful and sad and graceful times in my life. I think I was one of the only younger kids there who had heard all of there stuff way back from 1995--that's right kids, I've listened to them since I was 2. And they really made my childhood happy. Them, and DC Talk, and all those guys. Needless to say, they started with "Liquid", I freaked out, I screamed all the lyrics to all their old (and newer) stuff.. it was amazing. I came to the concert hoping truly, madly, deeply that they'd play things from their first album (because it's probably my favorite of theirs)--and just my luck--they DID, because that day (Nov. 6th) was the anniversary of their first album. And they sold a frigging collector's vinyl of it, and I HAVE IT RIGHT HERE. AND OMGOSH. Sorry, still a little excited just thinking about it. Anywho, they played "Love Song for a Savior", "Worlds Apart", "Faith Like A Child".. basically, amazing stuff. I couldn't have been happier with the performance, really. And the little chit chat between songs as Stephen and Dan cracked jokes about their bad 90's haircuts, and how only hipsters would have the right equipment to listen to their old material because it was a vinyl. And how no one knew about their first record (EXCEPTMEAHSFSH). And how, if you're a hipster, you need a moustache. And "all you people sitting in your seats are dead". Because IT'STRUE. (this person, right here, stood up proudly 97% of the time, WOOT!)

Anyways, you get the gist. It was amazing. I got a t-shirt too, and it doesn't really fit, but it doesn't matter, because it commemorates the day that my mom and I went to see one of my favorite bands in the whole world. And they're just as perfect and on key and crazy live. I love them. Seriously.


All in all though, today was pretty good. A lot of homework, little sleep, and senior pictures that just didn't turn out the way I wanted at all, got me really depressed, and I have to admit, I cried a bit. But when I checked my ACT scores, hoping to God that if it was anything, it couldn't be worse--I got a 29!!! I'm incredibly happy. That means money, which means a future, basically. I doubt I could've done much better, if better at all! I raised my score 3 points in total--my math score to a 26, my reading to a 33, and my science (somehow) to a 24. My English had always been in the mid-30's, so I was grateful that it was a 34, but honestly wasn't surprised (not to sound braggy, lol). All in all, I have many things to thank God for. I forget that he probably misses me, too, sometimes.

Dear You

I realize you are probably very far away right now.

And I realize that you are probably very different from me, too.

You probably are generally content or discontent with your life, unlike me. You probably don't lie awake at night thinking about whether you're real or not. Because if you do, well, that could be a problem.

You probably don't want to be a magazine girl one moment, and very much yourself the other. You probably don't think about God outside that vague sense of happiness. You've probably shoved him in a logical box, while he's slowly evaporating.

You probably don't paint your nails "Raven Red" when you worry, or stay up 'til 2 on a school night just because you know time doesn't exist. You probably don't have pages and pages of lists of things you really need but you'll never get.

You probably aren't terribly complex, although I wish you were. You probably would scare me at first. Why, you ask? Why, because you'd be the first one. Your eyes in mine. It's a sign of the times.

It means, in a way, I'd be ready to die.

I'd be willing to give you all my secrets.

It means I'd be very much alone.

And I realize that it's narcissistic of me to hope you understand me, when I am sometimes, strangely, less interested in you. Do you think it's wrong to use someone else to find yourself? I do. I very much do. But we do it everyday, through that guitar, that bent page. And that crazy social network.

But what I mean to say is this: Maybe your eyes are plain, and not sparkling green, blue, orange pools of exotic exhibition. Maybe your hair isn't handsome or fine, but a little knotted, and lazily coarse. Perhaps your hands aren't refined and elegant. Maybe they're broad, but perfect for handywork. Your smile might be quirkier than I could ever imagine. Your voice might not be very low, but your laugh might be just right. I just have to write this to remind myself that not everything I want is human, but I need something that is.

And I know this is getting long, so I'll try to write more often with less junk. You're probably one of those people that likes words to "get on with it", and I understand.

I was like that once.

Today is Tomorrow

So I need to really start getting myself in gear for college crap. There's a scholarship essay due next Monday that I just started on today, but I really need it done by tomorrow, at least by Wednesday. I hate the feeling of a deadline like this. College, and everything. My parents don't want me to go anywhere but John Brown, and I know they have a really good inkling of what's best for me, But something tells me I won't be the happiest there. I feel weird just applying to the college they want me at, but I'm not applying to Wheaton while the app is right beside me. I don't get it. It's not even laziness.. I guess it's just some kind of fear.

Either way, I pray it works out for the best.. and not just the best for me--the best for all of us. I know God has the right plan for me--he always has, and I've never doubted that. But it gets scary along the way, when today starts becoming tomorrow, and sooner or later, everything's different.


And I was thinking today. You know what? I don't care that I'm an idealist. Because what is real, dies. Only the ideal lives forever. And I don't plan on dying for death.




Power of One
Darling, dare
do not look down
because there is nothing
so beautiful as the up
carved in toothy cherub smiles
secreted in feathered
upward eyes. The
power of one living will not die, because
this is the Magician's favorite
apparition:
Boots struggling soulless towards the night,
Saying, "Boots were not made
for walking that light."

Infinite

I feel like a complete and total hypocrite right now, sitting here, writing, because I've been inspired. Inspired by a book I once acted superior towards. Don't you love that? Being proven wrong? It has such a great twisting feeling to it. The book was "Perks of Being a Wallflower", and I always laughed at it because I thought it was just another teen novel that everyone seemed to "relate" to and "love". And the funny truth is, I feel the same way. I put the closed book a foot to my left, and looked up the song I posted because the end of the book made me feel like that song, for some reason. And coincidentally, the music video reminds me of a scene described in the book. "So it goes."

So I realized--maybe I should start documenting more, because it's never too late to remember. And I know I'll need the memories for later.

Once Young

So black was the sky once
that I could not count the mess of scarring stars,
and likened man's architectures to false reality
and likened God's clouds towards a vapid smile.
So red was the moon once
that I felt blue for a scarlet heart,
and likened my footprints to anonymous craters
and likened paid reflection to an emptier world.
So empty was space once
that I could not float too far,
and likened eerie asteroids to older brothers
and likened bottomless belts to warm river veins.
So far was time once,
that I assumed nothing more silent than the nothing in myself,
and likened words to a distorted slate of blankness
and likened him to a fire-breathing untouchable, never human.
So real was sleep once
that I could not feign wake,
and likened friends to welcoming monsters
and likened wholesome novels for a melted page.
So long ago, Long Ago was then, once
that I forgot to swallow the quietest memories,
where I likened ankle bracelets to elements of the night
where vagrant feet could but dream to fly.