Live Exceptionally

Earlier this week, following a quote by Beat poet, Gregory Corso, a post in which I commented on his death from prostate cancer, a friend wanted to know how he lived.  I replied, 'he was a poet.  He lived exceptionally.'

I doubt Corso lived the high life, poets are generally not well-paid, or even paid at all, so I wasn't referring to his exceptional lifestyle.  Nor did I mean to imply his history with the Beat Generation, although that is something exceptional (and for this poet, a bit enviable).

What I meant by 'living exceptionally' is the gift of having a poet's sensibilities.  Poets look at everything, and they see it through a prism of language and detail.  The poet sees the whole universe in a mote of dust.  The poet grasps an entire lifetime in the dash on a tombstone.  The poet feels an entire symphony in a dying note struck on a piano.

That is living exceptionally.

It snowed most of the day here in the Big Woods, but this afternoon it has all but stopped, save for the tiniest glints of crystal still swirling in the air, visible only because a half-hearted sun is shining through the gray clouds.

That is living exceptionally.

My dog, Joey, is curled next to me on the sofa as I write, blissfully dreaming his dog dreams and every few seconds his front paws twitch and his brow furrows as if he's digging for imagined rabbits.  To play witness to his dreaming...that is living exceptionally.

Later tonight, I'll pour a finger of good Kentucky bourbon, turn off all the lights and stare into the reflected brightness of a waning full moon on the new snow.  I can thing of nothing more exceptional to do this evening.

This week, as I rummaged my brain for a poem to write, another friend complained about the winter squalls moving through the area.  There were some untamed images running around in my head, but until I read the word 'squall', I'd been unable to put them into a poem.

After writing the poem, I thanked her for giving me the word 'squall' and she replied upon reading the first few lines that perhaps she had been too harsh in her opinion of the weather.

'It is the poet's privilege to experience the world differently,' I replied, thankful to be living exceptionally.

Thirty days: 30 paintings, 30 poems

In November 2011, six months after Jeff died and still consumed with grief, I decided to pour that energy into a 30-day exercise of writing a poem each day.

The poet, David Lehman, wrote a poem every day for a year and collected some of those poems in his book, The Daily Mirror.  In the introduction, he noted how it was 'hit or miss', some poems falling flat and some days were complete misses. I'd read those poems a few years ago and found the concept intriguing.

I'm not a prolific poet, I tend to wait for inspiration; the sudden poetic phrase or line.  It doesn't happen often. By that November, I'd written a dozen  poems about Jeff, his death, my grief, increasing my poetic batting average and  I figured there might be another 30 poems wallowing inside me.

It took a couple of nights to realize I would not be receiving divine inspiration every day.  I don't know that I ever did.  I learned to find inspiration; facing the blank page and grabbing an idea out of the air.

I met that first challenge completing 30 poems in 30 days.  Two poems were almost really good.  Another four had potential.  Ten others worth salvaging and the rest would be filed away.  Not a bad effort for a poet.

The following November, I took the challenge again.  I had moved to my native Iowa and it was my first winter in nearly 30 years.  I was enamored of the quiet, the bitter cold, the life and death of seasons, and many of those poems are inspired by Iowa's beautiful but unforgiving winter landscape.

As a seasoned poem-a-day poet, I knew what to expect.  I didn't fret nights when I had nothing.  I would open my notebook, rummage around in my head and start writing.  I had about the same results as the previous year.

I'd written 60 poems in two years (not counting any written the other months) and of those 60 poems, four have been published.  I'm a poet, not a mathematician, but it seems like a good average.

One of those published poems, 'In A Hopper Painting', became the inspiration for this year's November ekphrastic exercise in poetic masochism.  I love the regional realistm of Edward Hopper and in his six decades as an artist, he left an extensive body of work.  I would write 30 poems, each inspired by his paintings.

It has been the most difficult of the challenges.  I read essays on his works.  I spent hours thumbing through books of his collected works.  I read his weighty biography.  I discovered  little-known works; works not typical of Hopper.  His paintings offered an unfinished narrative, a poetic leap. I avoided more linear interpretations and sought out an emotional landing.  Some paintings veered toward a more personal experience.

'Nighthawks' is not my favorite Hopper painting, but as the month closes, I realize it is the most fitting finish to this exercise.

Tonight, in the quiet dark, I'll sit down, open my notebook, stare at the lonely creatures gathered at the counter and imagine how it all will end.