Last night I was reading Robert Kelly’s lovely new poem, Reasons to Resist, which he describes in the subtitle as “a motet.” From the Latin word movere, “to move” a motet is a beautiful, unique style, I thought, for a longer poem which fittingly captures his ideas of music as well as language. The one line I keep repeatedly coming back to is: We all know how to talk/ we just don’t know when.
I’ve been chasing this thread of language, words, and ways of communicating throughout the vast amounts of poetry I have been absorbing lately.
Jan Zwicky, in her incredible collection entitle Wittgenstein’s Elegies, imagines language as an ancient city, difficult to navigate, that demands effort:
Our language is an ancient city, maze of interlocking
streets and squares. To know it we must
walk it, crawl through sewers, feel our way
by night along the walls. Most answers squat
before us, humble questions. Where they tower,
not the single-minded cleavage of broad-avenued
baroque, but subtler mysteries
reach heavenward, anonymous: the master-builders.
And Alex Caldiero, whose poetry I’ve been obsessed with lately thanks to a blog post from Scott Abbott, reminds us that silence is also telling form of communication. Silence is as powerful and extreme as shouting. From his collection Poetry is Wanted Here:
How we sound together
tells
more about who we are
than all the dialogs
of our lives
but
we settle for the uneasy
silence humans
mistakenly think
they have in common
w/ the beasts.
And from Caldiero’s collection Various Atmospheres:
We could try
to teach each other
our private wordings,
but with what words?
Or we could seek
a common denominator
in the number of our bones
or in the stances we take.
And then again
we could keep
the ancient solemn vow
of silence.
Italian poet Eugenio Montale contemplates words that betray our true feelings but agrees that silence reveals a deeper truth (tr. J. Galassi). From his collection Cuttlefish Bones:
You, my words, betray in vain the secret
sting, the gale in the heart that howls.
The deeper truth is that of a man who is silent
The song that sobs is a song of peace.
And German poet Helmut Heissenbüttel reminds us, in his poem Subjunctive about the complex grammatical structures that complicate language and communication (tr. Michael Hamburger):
up to the middle of the half
less than too little
least of all
as though as though
probably probably
took upon himself did not take upon
himself
undecided provisionally provisional
And, finally, a poem from Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, whose collection entitled the great enigma is extraordinary. His poem is about words on paper, written communication. Which can also turn into a form of silence. This poem, Lament, is translated by Robin Fulton:
He said aside his pen.
It rests still on the table.
It rests still in the empty room.
He laid aside his pen.
Too much that can neither be written nor keep silent!
He is paralyzed b something happening far away
although the wonderful traveling bag throbs like a heart.
Outside it is early summer.
Whistlings from the greenery—men or birds?
And cheery trees in bloom embrace the trucks that have come home.
Weeks go by.
Night comes slowly.
The moths settle on the windowpane:
small pale telegrams from the world.
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