The Fifth Poetry Workshop

The poetry workshop went well again. I thought we would follow the pattern that I seem to have inadvertently established of alternating between form and feeling, sound and sense. Since we spent the last time we were together scanning, I decided that this week we would begin to explore poetry's tendency to make meaning by metaphor.

When most people think of 'metaphor' they think of it as a mechanical 'poetic device' - a tool in the poet's toolbox, a simile without 'like' or 'as', something to be 'used' for some other purpose.

But metaphor is not a thing to be used. Metaphor is an articulation of an entire way of Seeing - perhaps of an entire way of Being. Metaphoria is a state of mind. It is the domain of the poet and of the poetic in all of us. It is the essence of language and probably of thought. All that is worthwhile is worthwhile because of metaphor. Metaphor is ecstasy. Metaphor is the quintessence. Metaphor is the mushroom of life.

In life, metaphor surrounds us, encompases us, moves through us like the air. You can feel metaphor on a warm brick wall, along the scar that runs across the back of your thumb, in the grass beneath your feet, in a look in your lover's eye.

In poetry, metaphor happens when two seemingly unlike things are brought near and their likeness revealed - their spiritual unity unveiled by the poet.

Consider, for instance, this little poem by Carl Sandburg:

__________

"Fog"

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

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Who can read that poem and not exclaim, "Yes! Amen!" It is right that the cat and the fog were brought near! Thank you Carl Sandburg! We do see their spiritual unity! Fog will never again come in on anything less than 'little cat feet'!

And one of the great things about metaphor is that metaphor bleeds both ways. It is not safe and linear. Through Sandburg's poem, we not only become more conscious of what it means to be fog but also of what it means to be a cat. And in perceiving these connections, we also learn that what it means to be fog and what it means to be a cat are not that different from what it means to be a man or a woman.

At any rate, the monks and I spent the afternoon skipping stones and conjuring metaphors down by the lake.

Not all of them were good. Some of them were downright bad. But that's OK. Both Seeing and Being take time and practice.

One of my favorites, though, was the discovery of the spiritual unity between the Sky and Death. It's not immediately apparent, but it's there. Oh, yes. It's there. And you learn to pay attention when an aged monk lies down on his back for 30 minutes staring up into the sky and then sits up and pronounces with a look of excitement on his face - Death!

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And so we proceed to dinner -

Appetizer
New Potatoes Stuffed with Smoked Salmon and Horseradish

First Course
French Onion Soup

Main Course
Filet Mignon with Mushrooms and Madiera Sauce
served with a Green Salad
w/ Diamond Mountain Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon 2000

Dessert
Apricot Sunburst
w/ Inga Grappa di Moscato

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The Sixth Poetry Workshop