First, plain speech in the mother tongue.
Hearing it, you should be able to see
Apple trees, a river, the bend of a road,
As if in a flash of summer lightning.
And it should contain more than images.
It has been lured by singsong,
A daydream, melody. Defenseless,
It was bypassed by the sharp, dry world.
You often ask yourself why you feel shame
Whenever you look through a book of poetry.
As if the author, for reasons unclear to you,
Addressed the worse side of your nature,
Pushing aside thought, cheating thought.
Seasoned with jokes, clowning, satire,
Poetry still knows how to please.
Then its excellence is much admired.
But the grave combats where life is at stake
Are fought in prose. It was not always so.
And our regret has remained unconfessed.
Novels and essays serve but will not last.
One clear stanza can take more weight
Than a whole wagon of elaborate prose.
--Czeslaw Milosz
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brief posts detailing our life on the road
Motto
"I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of."
--from Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
--from Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
Meet the Travelmonkeys
Well, it's me, JM, my partner-in-crime, M, and our small black pug, Baci. We work in theater; I'm the director, M's the creator and performer, Baci's the little bit of chaos that keeps life interesting. We spend about half the year at home in Brooklyn and the other half on the road. This blog is an attempt to document that half, so we can remember where we've been.
Where We're Going Next
--SEATTLE! (early August with workshops at Seattle Rep)
--INDIA!!! (rest of August, with performances and workshops in Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai)
--VANCOUVER, B.C.! (performance with PuSh early September)
--SEATTLE! (please, sir, no more shows, sir, just rest, sir)
--PORTLAND! (for the mighty T:BA Festival, second two weeks of September)
--AUSTIN! (shows at the University of Texas at Austin, where my parents met, third week of September)
--INDIA!!! (rest of August, with performances and workshops in Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai)
--VANCOUVER, B.C.! (performance with PuSh early September)
--SEATTLE! (please, sir, no more shows, sir, just rest, sir)
--PORTLAND! (for the mighty T:BA Festival, second two weeks of September)
--AUSTIN! (shows at the University of Texas at Austin, where my parents met, third week of September)
3 comments:
I love this poem. Thanks for posting it!
Bought a used book with a bookmark with a quote:
Every word was once a poem. Emerson.
I've been reflecting on it. The book is good too.
"One clear stanza can take more weight
Than a whole wagon of elaborate prose."
Without getting into a discussion about what is or isn't poetry, I think this is the power song lyrics have always had. It may not have been until the '60s that song lyrics appeared in American pop culture which finally got around to addressing the wide range of subjects poetry always has, but song lyrics have always done exactly what Milosz says a clear stanza can do. And, like poetry, there are a whole lot of bad songs to be suffered through before you find that diamond in the mine.
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