Blogging Revisited

As the one who recently had the privilege of getting to know you — and those of you who have generously shared yourselves in the comments sections — through spending a few hours partaking of your blog, a few comments:

-Robert, your poetry and your writing carries such a rich, intelligent, wide-ranging awareness and open-hearted tenderness. I am grateful to get to know you and to be a part of your community.

-As I read of your process of deciding to direct your schooling and life direction towards literature and poetry at UC Berkeley years ago (and recently again towards completing your MFA), I was reminded of the excerpted words below from Wordsworth’s poem, The Prelude, in which he captures his inner experience of receiving revelation and Spirit’s blessings while walking in the meadows very early one morning (he was walking home from an all-night gathering, and was in the meadow as the sun arose). This occurred as he was in the midst of a powerful turn in his early life — contemplating and praying on whether to become a church vicar in service to his sister and family (the “practical” direction he was being pressured to go), or to surrender to his deeper calling as a writer:

“Magnificent
The morning was, a memorable pomp,
More glorious than I ever had beheld.
The sea was laughing at a distance; all
The solid mountains were as bright as clouds,
Grain-tinctured, drench’d in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds,
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn —
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds,
And labourers going forth into the fields.
Ah! Need I say, dear friend, that to the brim
My heart was full? I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me: bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be — else sinning greatly — a dedicated spirit. On I walked
In blessedness, which even yet remains.”

William Wordsworth

-Your poem, The Silence Teacher, is one of those poems that took my breath away and is still working its way within me. I am a counselor and one who has been a life-long student of deep silence and listening, and am grateful you had the courage to capture and share this most intimate and painful passage in your and Val and James’ lives.

I certainly look forward to visiting and contributing to your blog, and to one day soon holding in my hands the bounded publication of your first collection of sacred poems. Thank you, Robert, for your presence, your dedication and
the gifted expression of your awakeness. It is a gift to be inspired by you. Regards, Gavin Frye

Blog traffic tends to drop around the holidays, mine has a bit since the election. I’m glad yours is up and running and I hope you continue to post.

P.S. Your lovely chapbook arrived in the post this morning. One of the most GORGEOUS letterpress books I’ve ever seen. Thank you so much for that kind gift. I look forward to reading it and showing it off.

Thanks for stopping by, Incognito Kurt.

A few more poets and their words that capture their seminal experiences confirming their life calling:

MY FIFTIETH YEAR
by W.B. Yeats

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.

While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless.

WHAT I DO IS ME
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire. dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring’ like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same;
Deal out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

LOVE SONNET XVII
by Pablo Neruda

And something ignited in my Soul
Fever of unremembered wings
and I went my own way
deciphering that burning fire.
And I wrote the bare first line
pure foolishness
pure wisdom
of one who knows nothing.
And suddenly I saw the heaven’s unfasten
and open.

Warm Regards, Gavin

Hi Robert: As I have a tremendous passion for the American Revolution, I’m in the midst of reading a quite fascinating book,”The Road to Monitcello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson.” It traces Jefferson’s life through the lens of the books he purchased, read, quoted from, collected — and libraries he carefully built from his childhood through his death. Fascinating read, as he was amazingly well-read and engaged in such a broad study of life and knowledge — with a foundation upon such a wide range of the ancient classics in original Latin, Greek, etc.

One thing I was delighted to discover: Jefferson was enamored with the Irish poet/mythic figure Ossian, and this passion greatly influenced Jefferson’s life views and writing style. So I’m delving into a few translations of some of Ossian from original Gaelic. Hauntingly beautiful…

Wonderful, Gavin. Thanks for sharing this. It does remind me of Kunitz, somehow, as well.

Glad you liked the little mini-chapbook. Merry Christmas to you and the family!

I happened to be reviewing some of my past research of William Blake today, and re-discovered that the authenticity of James Macpherson’s “translations” of Ossian were highly disputed in their time. Interestingly enough, Blake didn’t seem to care if the translations were real or fake–but only that they seemed, to him, to speak their own kind of truth.