Apprenticed to Poetry: Choosing the Life that Saved My Life, Part One

This next series of blog posts is a written version of a “sermon” or talk I gave at the UU Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They are a lovely and lively group of people who believe heartily in allowing the creative spirit to soar. Sometimes we all need a pep rally, though; especially during the dark days of winter. What brings back the light is the brightness we ourselves create. So let these words inspire you to revive your sleeping bear. Whisper in her ear, “Awaken my friend. The child of your creation is waiting to be born. It’s time to re-create Spring once again.”

Apprenticed to Poetry: Choosing the Life that Saved My Life, Part One

by Mendy Knott

The Writer

by Richard Wilbur 1976

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,

My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy;
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses;
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking.
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life and death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

Ask yourself, when did I first fall in love with something that was not another person or creature, but rather an expression of someone’s creative passion. Perhaps you fell in love with a landscape, architecture, a movie, a book, a song, or even a poem. And something stirred within you, poked you perhaps with a kind of excruciating pleasure, and a voice inside whispered “ I want to do this, too. I want to re-create this feeling in my own way, in my own words, with crayons or paints or a pencil.” And because you didn’t know you couldn’t or weren’t suppose to, or didn’t know how, you tried it. You loved it! You felt different, good, wonderful, brilliant!

Later on, someone, a parent or a teacher or someone with “authority” on the subject would let you know that you were doing it wrong, that your creation wasn’t really “all that” and quite possibly never would be. Ah, the spirit crushers are everywhere. Not everyone is as lucky as the daughter in the above poem whose father understands the struggle to create, the life and death of it, and wishes her a “lucky passage.” One of my mother’s favorite criticisms was “Oh, you’re so sensitive.” This was not a compliment coming from a Depression Era child who smirked at what she perceived as weakness of any kind.

Most of us will face our creative longings several times and turn away before we finally embrace the challenge; shoulder the courage and determination it takes to immerse ourselves in our truest passion. Because of the spirit-crushers we let the paint set harden. We allow the clay to dry to brick. The pens are a dried flower bouquet in a jar, untouched. The books about writing, the poetry we loved, and our notebooks remain high on a shelf above the mysteries and romances that are dog-eared and worn. Because it does takes courage. It takes believing in ourselves, and faith. A certain amount of “screw you” is called for. We must have a desire or need big enough to override our fears of imperfection.

It takes dedication, persistence, and practice; some would say a sort of benign delusion or obsession. We must be willing to become “rogue scholars” learning all we can on our own, doing homework nobody makes us do. Often, we must be our own mentors and cheerleaders. The road can be long and rough, but the personal rewards are oh so sweet.

(Continued in the next post...)

—Mendy Knott is a writer, poet and author of the poetry collection A Little Lazarus (Half Acre Press, 2010). To order your copy of A Little Lazarus directly from the author, please click here. Or, if cookbooks are more your style, get a copy of Mendy's family cookbook Across the Arklatex at www.twopoets.us.