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In
Memory of Arlene Lawson
(December 22, 1935 - December 6, 2006)
Members of Writers’ Village University and the Advanced Poets Workshop
dedicate this 2007 National Poetry Month Exhibit to a long-time member,
and moving force in the establishment of WVU poetry courses, Arlene
Lawson. Many poets, both in WVU and beyond, benefited from Arlene’s
gentle mentoring, encouragement and wisdom. Some of Arlene’s poems can
be read at The Country Mouse, an e-zine she established and financed.
http://www.poetrycmouse.com/issue5.html
In Service To The Spirit And The World
“In the thin places
Time is a healing time,
And what is torn is mended
And what has been given to you
Is handed back to the world.”
(Excerpt from “The Thin Places” in Allan Cooper’s book Gabriel’s Wing )
"Art is not a service. Or, rather, it does not reliably serve all people
in a standardized way. Its service is to the spirit from which it
removes the misery of inertia. It does this by refocusing an existing
image of the world. . .-- where the flat white of the page was, a field
of energy emerges. (Passage from Louise Gluck’s book Proofs and
Theories)
In this exhibit we highlight poets who, in their unique ways, hand back
to the world what has been given to them. They attempt to put into words
those “thin places” where the world sends forth an echo from places we
cannot categorize, those subdued areas we often, through neglect and
lack of sight, fail to give credence, those attributes that exist but
are not apparent. They invite us to push out or step over the limits of
prescribed thought.
One poet does this by focusing our attention on images of the natural
world. In doing so, a wider world is made more available to us, without
which, she says, the “spirit starves and the soul wanders in darkness.”
This animated natural world is art, filled with incarnational moments -
a gallery from which the poet reluctantly retreats.
Another poet tells us of a “mountain beyond’ the Native Americans call
“’Lady.’ Great stones shine reddish with gold sun sliding over one
slope” - she is the Mountain poet.
Still another poet discovers that a wider place can be accessed through
a receptivity to and a reaching through the “silence and solitude of
nature.”
Other poets explore places that are “neither here nor there,” where
paradox abounds and metaphor is the native tongue. The illusive “Shadow
World,” where things reverse, “on the white wall, a black horse…on a
black (night) screen, white stars,” draws the reader’s eyes to a fuller
light.
In the poignant poem, “Shell,” the poet speaks of disconnection with his
mother through the loss of her faculties; she is “a birdcage without the
bird or a flower without the scent.” He continues, “This is what she
finally seemed to be until… with probing eyes and withered hands, she
held my face.” An epiphany occurs at the moment of paradox-- fullness
appearing inside emptiness and a love deeper than loss-- and leaves this
reader wondering if the one part can exist without the other.
Each poet seeks in his or her own way to locate some aspect of a more
inclusive intelligence, some element deemed essential for life and
crossing boundaries, real, but more often arbitrary. Though established
and tangible, a “transcontinental 3145/mi/5061 km line” is also a place
where forward becomes back, present becomes past; confirming her
experience that life betrays such rigid distinctions in time and space.
On the day a farmer’s son returns from war, dead, “on the day he joined
the soft, sweet ground, robins searched the greening grass,” past the
boundary imposed by death, it would seem.
Many of the poets explore the results of various kinds of crossing where
time and space are not the constants we fancy them to be and where
something is gained, such as the felt presence of a deceased loved one--
“the touch of your hand…or the spice of your perfume,” or a wisdom that
is timeless, where one “sees all this and more.“ But the gains come,
almost always, at a cost - “what you see on the page is the ink that’s
left in the skin after I bleed.“
We are reminded by one poet that embracing a fuller perspective
sometimes means facing devastation where “buildings topple, china
quivers in cupboards,” where we ask unimaginable questions-- “Where have
you gone? How will you ring 3000 home?” - and receive no answers.
Louise Gluck states: “art refocuses an existing image of the world
….-where the flat white of the page was, a field of energy emerges.”
Sometimes that field of energy shakes us. Or saddens us. Sometimes it
offers the reader something of inestimable value as we see in Allan
Cooper’s poems, and we experience healing time. In the end, all is in
service to the spirit and to the world.
CONTRIBUTOR
In Service to the Spirit and the World was written by Marin, a poet
serving other poets.
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