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Post-Partum Poetry Thought
I think I will not write poems about the birth of my third son. I might be wrong, but I’d bet not. The birth itself was so real, present, calm, loving, right. What poem “needs” to be written about it or of/out of it or in it? Does that mean that I write poems in order to fix experiences? I have always found it annoying when people tell me I write because it is therapeutic. I understand how writing can be therapeutic (and the writing as a therapy can be extremely useful), but the notion that every time I write a poem I’m performing a self-treatment is disturbing. And, if it is true, does it mean that publishing poems is like taking photos of yourself taking medication and showing these snapshots to friends?
We’ve all been to readings (particularly open mics) when the poems sound a lot like A.A. testimonies. Again, nothing against testimony or A.A., but I often think, sitting at these kinds of readings, “I’m doing something different.” Am I? Or is my poetry simply a more subverted type of testimony, a less obvious form of self-therapy?
In my photography classes with Lois Conner I learned to say I was “making pictures” rather than “taking pictures,” and I hope making a poem is more than recording a (bad) experience or “expressing” how you feel (for more on my thoughts about poetry as “expression” see my GNAT. I don’t write poems to make myself feel better or to convince someone else to do something—these aims are more the purview of diarists, journalists, and essayists—but what then to do with this realization that I will probably not write about the birth of my third son because I don’t need to? (I certainly felt I did need to write about the birth of my second son, see my discussion and birth poems on How2).
Does the fact that I don’t need to write about this birth mean that when I do write, I write to fix something?
Posted in Group Blog, Uncategorized on Monday, June 11th, 2007 by Rachel Zucker.
Comments (3)
Rachel,
Reading that you could not write poems after the birth of your third son because it was “so real, present, calm, loving, right” made me think of your claim in an earlier post that:
“I think that being a mother is a role that is just beginning to be understood for some of its many creative and revolutionary qualities…..”
Reading both posts, I want to askHow2) is closer to Auden’s sense of the revolutionary.
But it seems to me that the capacity to be or to shatter and mend are both revolutionary forces that motherhood teaches us.
Emily
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although I have no comprehension of the “revolutionary forces that motherhood teaches us,” from my own (fairly limited) experience of life and death I have to believe that the need to “fix” experiences through poetry is not an immediate driving force… reconciliation with or explanation of an experience, maybe- but not necessarily in a therapeutic sense. to quote carolyn forche (yeah, what about it- I’m name dropping too!) (this is especially relevant, at least for me, in terms of judah’s birth) “there is no other way to say this”.
I think that there is no verbal capacity or need to explain or reconcile or even recount such an event because it is/was, and there is no more perfect way to experience or express or discuss or explain it than the experience itself- maybe this is getting too meta for ms. emily warn, but I hope it makes sense to someone out there in the cybervoid.
In my limited and admittedly very very humble experience, not writing about something that you don’t “need” to in no means invalidates those things that you choose to write about. Instead- those things that you don’t “need” to write about, in a way, can’t be written about because they have already been written (physically and in any other experiential way) in the most accurate and honest way possible. I think the need to write about an event or experience occurs most strongly when that event or experience is disordered in some other way- in this sense, the act of writing about it is not therapy or an act of rectification, but an examination of truth and consequence, and the need to communicate the truth of the experience. the study and practice of photography teaches you to understand that the most weighted and glorified moments in life are often the most difficult (or impossible) to capture successfully on film. in my experience, the same goes with poetry: why try to explain or describe or recount something that has already occurred and been experienced in the most accurate and perfect way possible? It would be like making a photocopy of an original piece of artwork- it becomes cheapened.
Like photography- the most likely subjects, the most beautiful and profound and accurately expressed moments or experiences or scenes are the precise moments that need no explanation or verification. “Making a picture” is one of the most accurate ways I’ve encountered to describe the process and intent of writing poetry. Like photography- the value of the content itself is not weighted by its gravity, but by the communication of that content that the accuracy of the poem (or photograph) comes into play.
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Oy! It’s taken me so long to respond to these fantastic comments/ questions that my post isn’t even up. Emily: lately motherhood has been teching me “to be” AWAKE. And I’ve got my hands full. Judah won’t be put down, and I don’t mean trash talking. So, I’ve written you dozens of responses in my head but none have made it to the screen yet. I promise that my next post will address the question of the revolutionary qualities of motherhood and what this might have to do with poetry (and how this is related to “being”). And more on the topic of writing as a need. I loved when Lindsey (she’s SO smart! and wonderful!) wrote: “the need to write about an event or experience occurs most strongly when that event or experience is disordered in some other way.” I agree!
So, please don’t think I’m ignoring you.
In the trenches,
Rachel
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