If My Brain Is God--We're All In Trouble

I'm a fan and regular reader of the wonderful website The Writer's Almanac, on which I can read a new poem every day (some good, some bad, and some absolutely excellent), and about writers, artists, and historical figures whose birthdays or histories feature somehow on any given day. Today is the birthday of Timothy Leary, a person about whom I must admit I know very little. But I found myself with tears in my eyes as I read the short biography written on the Writer's Almanac.

The line that really brought me up short was this one, a quote from Mr. Leary himself;

"I awoke to the consciousness that I was trapped in a dark room, in a
hastily constructed, thin-walled stage-prop home in Berkeley, California. I
was a rootless city-dweller. An anonymous city employee who drove to work
each morning in a long line of commuter cars, and drove home each night and
drank martinis and looked like and acted like several million middle-class
liberal intellectual robots."

My god, how many of us have felt like that at one point or another? I know I have. Okay, I don't drink martinis, but I have my numbing agent of choice, and I certainly feel rootless and disconnected with the world at times--be it the natural world, the spiritual world, or even my own community.

What strikes me the most about Leary's biography is that he seems to have been as lost and adrift outwardly as most of us are inwardly. Leary fled from country to country as most of us flee from interest to interest or hobby to hobby, never able to settle in one place or on one thing long enough to make a real connection. And I'm not sure what to think of the drug use. I grew up in the Nancy Reagan "Just say No!" era, and subsequently have a healthy fear of illegal substances; but I also tend to think that there is value in every learning experience. So what was it for Leary--an unhealthy escapism or a driving desire to learn and experience all that he could? I don't know, but I can identify with both of those.

Perhaps that's what made my unexpected reading of Leary's short biography so moving; I see in him my own internal struggles, but he did it on the public stage.

(Click here to find books by Timothy Leary)

Kay Ryan's "Snack-Size" Poems Will Stick To Your Ribs

Our new Poet Laureate Kay Ryan describes her short poems as "snack-size", and on the one hand, she's right--her poems are so short they're almost haiku. But don't let their size deceive you; these poems are anything but snacks. Take as an example her poem entitled "Hope" (from the book Elephant Rocks):

Hope

What's the use
of something
as unstable
and diffuse as hope--
the almost-twin
of making-do,
the isotope
of going on:
what isn't in
the envelope
just before it isn't:
the always tabled
righting of the present.

Nothing snack-like about the content of that particular poem! And that's just the tip of the iceberg. All of Ryan's poems tap into deceptively simple truths; honest morsels to which your first thought is to shrug and think well of course that's true, but which upon further reflection leave you agog, mouth hanging open in amazement at the shades of complexity to be found in one simple truth. "Mirage Oases" (Also from Elephant Rocks) is just one of many of Kay Ryan's poems that leave me open-mouthed:

Mirage Oases

First among places
susceptible to trespass
are mirage oases

whose graduated pools
and shaded grasses, palms
and speckled fishes give
before the lightest pressure
and are wrecked.

For they live
only in the kingdom
of suspended wishes,

thrive only at our pleasure
checked.

I have to admit that I was surprised to find myself falling in love with Kay Ryan's poetry. There are very few contemporary poets to whom I feel drawn. It was only after hearing an interview with Ryan on NPR's On Point that I felt compelled to pick up one of her books. Ryan reads a few of her poems during the course of her show, and after hearing her read the first poem I was hooked. Her voice is rich and hypnotic, giving context to each poem with mere sound, no back-story or explanation was ever necessary.

Once I started to spend some quality time with Ryan's poetry, it seemed only natural that she would become one of my favorites. Ryan's poetry puts me somewhat in mind of Emily Dickinson, another singer of deceptively simple songs with an endless well of truth and meaning.

I'm glad to have Kay Ryan added to the roster of United States Poets Laureate, and not just because she's a native of California. (A state that--as a native Californian myself--I feel is grossly under represented.) I like that her poetry is unpretentious. It is (to use an over-used word) accessible. I don't feel that her poems are pushy, or require that I cup my chin and look skyward. But at the same time, Ryan asks that her readers do put sincere thought into age-old assumptions

I will end this post with the poem of Ryan's that first hooked me. Everything after this one has only drawn me in deeper. I'm a willing victim, held spellbound by the cadence of her lines, the honest simplicity of her themes, and perhaps a little by the decidedly un-intimidating length of the poems; each one of which seems to say, "Oh what's the harm in reading just one more?" This poem, in which the author asks God to please simplify the world a bit, seems a particularly apt closing to a blog post about a poet who makes us see more by showing us less.

Blandeur (from the book Say Uncle)

If it please God,
let less happen.
Even out Earth's
rondure, flatten
Eiger, blanden
the Grand Canyon.
Make valleys
slightly higher,
widen fissures
to arable land,
remand your
terrible glaciers
and silence
their calving,
halving or doubling
all geographical features
toward the mean.
Unlean against our hearts.
Withdraw your grandeur
from these parts.