Not shock,
but teach gently
to connect.
[Note: Odd, since I recently wrote a long poem about the value of knowing how to disconnect, as well as connect, but when I wrote this, I was thinking mainly about a tendency in many poets of our time to value shock, and of critics and reviewers to praise literature for being shocking. The idea (similar to the psychiatric notion that shocking a brain is beneficial) seems to be that when people are petrified in some way, for example, stuck in unevaluated social values, it is an artist's job to jolt them out of their solidity--for example, use language that shocks, images that disgust, etc.
My own view is that heavy jolts shock a person out of one solidity into a new solidity that is usually denser than the original state, so that stronger and stronger shocks are needed, just as an addict needs larger and larger doses to get the high. I aim, not at shock, but at a recognition that is also a surprise, like the melody that, even as it surprises us in its twists, seems immediately inevitable, as if we'd known it all along.
Connect here could mean to connect with one another or simply to make connections, become aware of them. And a few zillion other things.]
MANY MORE OF MY POEMS AND ESSAYS AVAILABLE AT WWW.BLEHERT.COM. Site also has my wife's paintings and poems.
ALSO OTHERS OF MY ESSAYS AND LONGER POEMS ARE AT http://dearreader08.blogspot.com
MY WIFE WRITES ABOUT ART (HER OWN PAINTINGS AND ART TIPS, ETC.) AT http://dearartest.blogspot.com
We have various books and other products available. Info on request.
Dean Blehert
dean@blehert.com
dblehert@verizon.net
www.blehert.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment