On Meeting The Sacred

 

Sometimes, in the process of “being a writer,” we can get lost. This can happen in many ways, some of them beneficial, some not. I think a lot of us ‘got lost during the pandemic, and for some, that was beneficial, for some it was agony, and for a few of us, it seems, a little of both. Many stories, most of them likely apocryphal, have been told about famous/historical writers - things they are said to have said, things they are said to have done, things reputed to have been their practice, whether evidence exists for that or not. (Writing teachers, it seems, love to tell stories. Go figure). It is said that Dickens used to like to go out in London and intentionally get lost in its maze of streets, finding inspiration in being detached from the security of home. Shakespeare is said to have written King Lear in quarantine, but no one can prove that, but it is known that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in quarantine, and, though he wasn’t a writer, Isaac Newton did write his paper on the discovery of gravity while also in quarantine. 

   I wrote a few poems. As it turns out, that was a good thing for me, at least at first - several of the poems I sent out to publications were picked up and published. So often was I getting accepted that it became a bit of an intoxicant for me, and I began putting more and more time into getting things marketed to publications, paying attention to deadlines, researching what kind of poems each publication seemed to prefer that, when I would sit down to write a poem, what sometimes was tapping at my mental window was that market, and not so much the poem, the thought, the THING that makes a poem worthy.

 

So, recently, I stopped. I realized that the poem I’d been wanting to write, that had been through (as sometimes happens) a few false starts, needed me much more than the market did, but I felt unsure how to get back to it, how to really get back to it. So I stopped submitting - I put away all the records of submissions, all the notes on markets, all the ways I track what is and is not submitted, and was sure to get them out of my sight when I was sitting at my desk.

And, the first few times I sat down after this …. well - I just sat there - maybe some scribbling, maybe some trying writing prompts and reading others’ work (strategies which have helped me in the past) to get going and then……more just sitting there. I got through days with projects around the house (always plenty of those) and in the garden, and let myself just feel relief  at not having to sweat the submissions and the market and just be here, at home, in my life. 

Finally, I began writing poems again, poems that I can look at and know that they are the kind I would have produced back when my graduate advisors Nicky and Mark would prod me about doing what Nicky called  “the real work.”  They could and did expect me to be able to demonstrate mastery of all the basics and beyond. They tested me and pushed me about the craft - checking my understanding of rhythm and meter and scansion and line breaks and rhyme patterns, but much more time was spent on Nicky’s “real work” - the art of poetry (yes, yes, it’s another art vs craft post - that’s because IT IS IMPORTANT) - the inner work of the poet, of ANY artist that compels them to push deeply into what they hope to create.

I’d lost that focus in my intoxication with the market. A couple of things helped me out - the first was Wendell Berry’s “How To Be a Poet” - I now read it daily, and every few days, pull a phrase or two from it and post it just in front of my writing - this week, it’s “Depend upon Affection. Make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.” (I love that “affection” is the first thing he thinks we should depend on in writing a poem, followed by reading, skill, knowledge, inspiration). The other thing that helped me was a line of advice from a Hopi elder, White Eagle: “Establish a routine to meet the sacred every day.”

This one knocked me (to borrow a phrase from my wonderful sister Kathleen) right on my plentiful Irish arse. What could be more essential, more critical to doing our best with whatever art we’ve chosen, than being sure to ‘meet the sacred’ – and it was absolutely clear to me that, as earnest and supportive as the staff of many literary journals are, there is little sacred about the act of marketing.

I am quite sure I will send more things to market, but I am also quite sure that I will, now that I am seeing my work published pretty regularly, work equally hard to keep myself focused on what matters - the heart of the work I’m attempting. It’s good to know how to market your work, it’s good to know how to meet all of the expectations of craft. It’s more important - most important- that whatever in you that is sacred be reflected in your work. Be sure to attend to that.