Art for Art's Sake: an Apology

I believe that my poem says that Art for Arts Sake is morally purposeful and/or subversive.  I deny the possibility of cutting art off from spirit and assert that pure art is spirit.

Yesterday I posted a poem called "Let this be my epitaph" which said to my readers that I am in the "Art for Art's Sake" camp of writing.  Here I am making an Apology: I just read through the poems I have written since April 2012--six months of almost a poem a day.  Few--if any--of them are "Art for Art's Sake." Indeed, this poem opens a paradox while actually redefining this very term.  Did I know this when I wrote it, or discover the riddle later?  

 

This must sound funny--that I had to reread my poems to discover this meaning and this question--but it is not a joke.  I do not mean to say that I write in some kind of trance state.  There are stages of writing, however, and then stages of performing which fall into the realm of prayer in the same sense that a person, an action, words--all we do in the name of God or that God does through us--can be seen as prayer.  Here I want to discuss this spiritual action in three steps: (1) what my poem actually "says," (2) what "art for art's sake" is, and (3) poetry as spiritual action.

 

(1)  

In "Let this be my epitaph,"  I wrote:

I make art; I go to art for its aesthetic alone 
and find vacation from play and work and giving 
that nourishes  all three

What seems a direct claim for "art for art's sake" contains a paradox.  If art "nourishes" it has purpose, and--if it has purpose--the art is not art for art's sake.  In these lines I compare the purpose of art to the purpose of vacation, which is, I assert, to nourish "all three": "play and work and giving."  Vacation is for refreshing vocation, not for escape from vocation.

 

In fact, it is a fallacy to say that since p (play) = P and w (work) = W and g (giving) = G, then a (art) = A.  Instead, the truth is that a (art) = p + w + g = PWG = A.  Perhaps logicians can tell me in formal terms what I am saying here.  

 

In informal terms, I am saying that by making and enjoying art--by definition outside the context of necessary daily occupation--I find new meaning in daily life.  When I can, I use poetic and other forms of writing to pass on the truths and questions I find.  That is my art.  It may also be a paradox to find art necessary and useful and powerful--not at all a luxury.  Government censorship of the arts--and of the kinds of free public education that encourages the arts--is proof of its power.  I believe that creating and enjoying art is a way of training independent thought and creative solutions in every imaginable context.

 

(2)

I wrote the poem "Let this be my Epitaph" for the challenge "Arts gonna art" at Poetry Jam.  For her prompt, blogger Dani clarifies three stances on the merit of poetry as (1) "for poetry's sake," (2) "to serve some moral or didactic purpose," and (3)  "to be morally subversive."  She directs her readers to the Wikipedia article  Art for Art's Sake for more information, but also concludes, "Perhaps all viewpoints are valid."  She asks us to write a poem which takes a point of view on these merits by commenting on or debating one or more of these stances or by illustrating one of them.  I believe that my poem says that Art for Arts Sake is morally purposeful and/or subversive.  I deny the possibility of cutting art off from spirit and assert that pure art is spirit. 

 

For example, what if I paint one colorful and textured blob or write a poem all sounds and nonsense--in each case foregrounding artistic means and form but not content.  My only purpose might be to pass the time, or to play with elements and to avoid any purpose.  But, how subversive!  An audience member has to think, even in asking, "What is the artist doing, and Why?"   Dada--an artistic movement that engaged writers, artists, and performers in nonsense--was subversive in this way in the second decade of the 20th century as it acted against war, authority, and even museum-hogging of culture.  

 

Modern arts including "Art for Art's sake" picked up from there.  The spirit of "no" often arises, the spirit of "yes" often does too as well as more complexity.  I have not used the word "political" yet, but you can feel it coming.  All choices are political, even those NOT to align with any one system.  

 

(3)

In studying, teaching, and directing theatre most of my life, I learned that anything that advances the plot is action and often character in action.  Indeed, every element of the theatre and drama can be used strategically (politically) by actor, designer, and director to advance the story's plot and thought.  Words, looks, gestures, stance are action filled with intention.  Color, line, decor, balance, and the entire physical apparatus of the stage has active intention.  And then the actual movement and dialogue acts, as does stillness, groupings, comings and goings.  Everything.  

 

This is true of poetry as well, whether a poem lies on a page of a book waiting for discovery or whether sounded into words, phrases, juxtapositions, and voice.  All is action.  A tree stands, OK.  But, in a poem that tree also stands, placed there and framed by a poet.  Does the reader see the tree?  Does it matter?  Does the reader see it now but not later?  How does the reader change the tree?  That too is action for the theatre and for poetry.  

 

For my poem's opening lines I chose three of the many things that engage my conscious and unconscious mind: play, work, and giving.  I might have chosen eating, sleeping and loving or any of myriad actions, but I didn't.  I took the first three that entered my head and penned them in a new order: playing became first because I used to leave it out, I was such a workaholic.  And giving--which characterized a lot of my work--stood out as I am retired from teaching, so I am questioning how giving--ministering--will still be part of my life.  In each case I wrote a phrase parallel to art for art's sake:

I play for the sake of playing (and all my troubles stay away)
I work for the sake of working (and lose myself in its hours)
I  give for the sake of giving, ego–free, (and I gain more than my mind can comprehend)

 

I thought that if these phrases made sense I would know WHAT I had to write about art for arts sake.  They did make sense once I added a phrase clarifying the result (in the parenthesis above).  Therefore, my 4th line, quoted in Part (1) above, addressed the same question about art and simultaneously compared and redefined it.  What remained was to describe the art/vacation, and that came out as a mash-up of poetry I have written, spirit-filled yes, no, and thank you. Is it also a paradox to say that  "Yes, no, and thank you" are the only three answers I have ever received to my prayers?  It feels to me that the poems I--we--write are questions or answers to our moments in a

mash-up of “what if” with 

“is” and “was” that at best 

touches soul and opens spirit

 

This is, at best, the action of my poems in the world, and it was the action of this poem on me.  While writing.  While sifting thoughts and reaping between the lines.  And I thought wouldn't that be a wonderful epitaph?  And I made it so.  Would it be so.  It is, in this poem, a definite yes.

 

 

 

 

My first publication!

 



Nain Rouge  published one of my poems! I am so happy. It is a a new magazine for the arts out of Detroit which is international in scope, and it even has page numbers. It has a unique urban theme, and my poem "Blindness" (on page 33) fits in very well.
 

I have also submitted poems to 2 other publications: Apiary Magazine--written by humans--features Philadelphia writers and Friends Journal carries a few poems each month interspersed among features on Quaker life and thought today.

I am too excited today to write anything else.  I will commit myself to write a blog to post on Fridays.

RAMBLES FROM MY CHAIR - my main blog: More about Real Toads

I am a member of  The Imaginary Garden with Real Toads* where I link my poetry in order to get the feedback and practice I need to become a better poet.  You need not be a member to be active in the blog, you just have to actively participate with poetry and responses to other poets.  I felt quite alone as a poet until I ran into the garden where I feel safe to write and read.  Every other day, members of the garden post a challenge or another stimulation for our writing--it may be a new form to write in, a painting or a poem to respond to, an interview of a poet or an introduction to a more obscure historical poet.  The variety is important, because I never feel that I am in school. 

Creative Commons*

If you are a poet--or even just a beginning poet--you should visit to see what it is like.  

One Sunday, the post was a photography challenge featuring the art of Scriptor Senex*, otherwise known as John Edwards.  I found his photos and narrative to be stepping stones into a new land.   While other poets each chose a photo and wrote a poem from it--amazing poems that I wish I had written--I wrote a tribute to the man himself.  

Portrait of the Artist

He included the tribute in a post on his own blog, the last piece in a description of his experience in the garden which provides links to many of the poems he inspired.  You can read it here:  RAMBLES FROM MY CHAIR - my main blog: More about Real Toads.*

Small Copper
© John Edwards

*click here for a quick link.  Since this blog has stopped changing the color of links, I have starred each phrase that has a link to its own site.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Labor Day

It is Labor Day, the first Monday morning of September 2012, at 10 AM.   

This is the day I had promised myself that I would pull out the unfinished pages of my novel to add a short chapter 8.  And I want to, very much.   But I am not surprised that I am procrastinating today.  Traditionally, work starts for me the day after Labor Day when I return to school along with every other student and teacher I know.  During the last several years I spent this day showing up at a labor march and then putting some thought into transporting plants, plans, and decor into my high school English classroom in the center of  Philadelphia.  

But this year, the unfinished novel--along with this blog, my poetry blog and continued healing--is my work.  I am not going to school for the first time in 55 years.  My relatively stress-free home is my new work environment.  I am not driving into "the city" and may actually add a few years on the life of my car by using it much less frequently.  I am not smoking cigarettes either--not since February--which may add a few years onto my own life. I had to completely cut the expense of cigarettes--more than $100 a month--in order to retire early on disability compensation.  I have gained weight, but the increased self-confidence I feel is worth it.  I figure that if I can break an addiction after 43 years, I can do many more things than I dreamed of in my philosophy.       

This weekend I attended a Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center workshop called "What is Your Story?" about finding and expressing personal truths through oral and written story.  There--in addition to completing the joyous tasks of each day--I took notes on Alice in Wonder, the working title of my novel.  I need a new beginning place so I will not get bogged down reading over and over what I have already written.  I've changed in the 2 years since I wrote the original 5 chapters and in the one year since I wrote chapters 6 and 7.   Last year I discovered I still enjoyed the story.  This year I realized--during an interview of me on the Poets United blog--that I would finish it come Hell or high water. 

It's 10:50 AM on Labor Day, and I am writing while skimming my weekend notes!  Here are the notes--in sequential order--that I took about Alice in Wonder (working Title):

1. Retain physical sensations various thoughts bring to mind: including where different parts of my story reside in Chakras and, for example, twitch the left shoulder, restrict breath, cramp the fingers on my right hand and begin a burning in my stomach.  What is that?  What brings tears?
2. Remember that I have permission to write anything I want.  Look even where I tell myself I cannot go.  (Next to this I wrote: Can I?  I am trembling.)
3. What stories would Alice not want people to know about herself?  What stories would she tell? 
4. What's in the way of my writing today?  What's in the way of Alice's thinking--according to me?  

Notes #5-40 have been removed to protect the author. I think they reveal too much about the novel; I sure do have a sense of accomplishment!  It is now 11:58-12 noon on Labor Day, and I am ready to put this away until tomorrow.  

A documentary and a movie

Sometimes at evening there's a face        
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.   
Art must be that sort of mirror,               
disclosing to each of us his face.            

     ~from "The Art of Poetry" by Jorge Louis Borges

 

Two great pieces of art just showed myself to me, and neither of them are my own art.  The first is the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) and the other is the film Pariah (2011).  Both feel like truth to me.

Celebrating Borges' Birthday

 I have to thank Maria Popova today for her 113th birthday remembrance of Jorge Louis Borges "Borges on Love and Loss" in The Atlantic and also in her blog post at Brain Pickings.**  I had intended to discuss the poem she published today in his honor, but stumbled into the middle of controversy:  Is the poem "You Learn" by Jorge Louis Borges or is it "After a While" by Veronica A. Shoffstall?

My online research would have it both ways: Shoffstall published it in 1971; his dates are not clear.  One online version lists Shoffstall as translator.  One blog gives Borge's Spanish version with this reference "texts recovered, 1919-1929. by Jorge Luis Borges, Sara Luisa del Carril.  Published by Barcelona: Emece, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2003"--but I have not verified this.  I found no evidence of the existence of any publication on-line, and the question is not important enough to me to take on the footwork of going to the libraries and publishing houses that might have the answer.  I agree with two commentators that the poem doesn't have the rich allusions, images, and surrealism that are customary in Borges' style. Yet, I know he had a life beyond his writing that was more practical than surreal.

Hmm.  I am bemused by my lazy refusal of the detective role in this case.  I love research that finds sources of streams.  Along with other PhDs, I was trained as a "history detective" before the television show existed.  I am bemused, also, by being bemused!  It is a much more pleasant experience than my normal shame at doing less than possible, and more pleasant too than the perfectionism of actually doing it.  HA!  I have fallen right into Borges' "what if" world in which time is not reliable and change and changelessness co-exist.  He recognizes issues like perfectionism, and his characters could easily get caught in a loop of impassible passion.  

I see that I am celebrating Borges without the poem in question, an irony that I suspect Borges would like.  I will end by including a poem that is definitely one of the masters. 

The Art Of Poetry 

by Jorge Luis Borges

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing. 

 

Note: I borrowed this poem from "Famous Poets and Poems."  If you wish to quote it in any way, please refer to my source.  I have no copyright for this poem.  I just enjoy it.  And I thank Maria Popova for her reminder of this birthday and for her commitment to creativity.

** I removed the links to Maria's article because it has been removed.  You may find Brain Pickings here.

Connections and poetry

Last I wrote here, my holy experiment was to read one of my poems aloud.  Since then I have continued writing so that now, 14 poems later, I am ready to reflect on how interconnections abound.  

I had my first publication of sorts on-line a few days ago when Third Sunday Blog Carnival linked my blog to theirs and featured my poem “Pushed.” This poem about buttons was a response to an open challenge at dVerse PoetsPub.  Through responding to that challenge and others, I roamed many poetry workshops to interact with poets and ideas.  Eventually one of them, Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads, asked me to become a member. I joined with delight as the poems and comments from poets there lived up to its mission, which reads in part:
    

The purpose of this writing community is to ensure an intimate and supportive environment and an improvement of our writing skills. We are always open for change and knowledge.

The name of the blog reflects its purpose.  It is a fragment of a line from Marianne Moore’s poem “Poetry.”  The first line of the poem—“I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle”—leads to her list of poetic crimes until she says:

. . . nor till the poets among us can be

     "literalists of

      the imagination"--above

         insolence and triviality and can present

for inspection, "maginary gardens with real toads in them,"

      shall we have

   it. . . . 

“Real toads” are to me the details that bring truth to senses.   
This is the perfect workshop for me as I practice my art.

Connections help me extend my own holy experiment to see where it leads and take opportunities as they appear.  Thus, a few days ago I completed an interview for the Poets United series “TheLife of a Poet” which should air soon. I didn’t refuse because it was too soon or I wasn’t published yet or any of the other ways I hide.  All I have to do is continue doing what I am doing while listening to the still small voice guide me on the path.

One thing is clear: being a poet is not about making money. Poet Charles Simic speaks to this in “Poets and Money,” today’s post in the NYR blog at The New York Review of Books:

We never got rich in the past and won’t see a dime in the future. Despite copyright laws, most of our poems are already freely available to millions of people on the Internet and in this age of short attention spans, poetry may end up by being the only literature people will read. With no bookstores left and libraries shut down, lovers in need of additional romantic stimulus will have to reach for their iPhones and find a poem suitable for the occasion to read to each other. Poetry’s strength comes from such practical uses. Everyone has heard of poems being read at marriage ceremonies and funerals, but I suspect nobody has ever tried to inflict a chapter of a novel or a short story on that kind of gathering. No wonder writers and intellectuals by and large disdain poetry.  “Poets work for nothing . . . .”

Simic goes on to describe the one occasion when he thought it might be about money. His anecdote is farcical in the extreme, until: 

. . . one bright sunny morning I rose before anyone else, sat at my desk and read what I’d been working on, and realized that everything about them was totally fake. I tore the poems up with great hurry and embarrassment and went out to take a long walk with my dog.

He couldn’t market what working-to-order did to his poem.  He, like me and the poets I am meeting now, writes with a different kind of urgency.   The toads we reveal in our poems are very definitely real.