The Conditions for Poetry:Uneven Verse and the Absence of Self

#24
 idleness
shelter
solitude –
then art may appear
 
#57
 rain settles in
over the city
low cloud
a mind for poetry
 
#103
 given emptiness
poetry will arise –
take a breath
 
#134
 a soft, grey day
a quieter world
a day for poetry
 
Scattered throughout Uneven Verse are poems about the conditions that I need for writing poetry. It’s something that I’m curious about. Why is it sometimes possible to write and sometimes simply impossible? It’s not about being easy or difficult. I either can or I can’t, and why is that?
 
Poem #24 suggests that idleness, solitude and silence are prerequisites, but this is not the whole story. I don’t always need to be alone and quiet. I can write on a crowded bus with noise everywhere.
 
#152
 city lights
Chinese girls chattering
Flame Trees on the bus driver’s radio
all one
 
And by the same token, if my mind is busy, even when I’m alone and quiet, poetry can’t arise. If I’m tired, stressed, preoccupied with to-do lists, poetry doesn’t appear. It’s not actually about it being quiet outside, but about being quiet inside.
 
#21
 the rain sounds like a train
watching at open doors and windows
minds empty
 
#139
 lights on in the daytime
steady rain falling –
thoughtful, no thoughts
 
I’ve always wondered why I’m so prolific when I’m in Japan. There may be a couple of reasons. I don’t read or speak Japanese, so my mind isn’t cluttered with extraneous language through overhearing what others are saying, or through reading environmental text. I’m free to just look, watch and experience the world. I’m on holidays. I have no responsibilities. I don’t need to do anything, and most of the time I can’t do anything. I’m quite useless. This poem is from my first book, Ash.
 
#212
 the deaf, mute guest
sits alone writing
while others work
 
In contrast, when I'm at home, I have many duties and roles to play. I am not just some-one, I am many-ones. I am a wife, parent, grandparent, adult child of an elderly parent, sibling, colleague, friend, citizen. Even being a consumer requires a certain persona.
 
There’s nothing wrong with this. All these selves are parts of my identity, reflecting and (usually) satisfying all the parts of who I am. But when I am able to write poetry, all these selves have dissolved and I am left, not to be myself, that’s not it, but to be no one - to play no role, to wear no hat, to not be useful to anyone. To be quite useless. To be empty the way a guitar is empty. When I’m empty in this way, poetry may appear.
 
This self without identity comes and goes in my day – when I’m standing at the kitchen sink, hanging out the washing, sitting on the bus, lying in bed before I get up in the morning, walking the dog. My mind floats and then fixes on something – a small detail of what I see, what I’m doing, or a thought that arises – and it forms, in my empty mind, into a poem.
 
If my poetry is anything, if my art is anything, it is an affirmation of life. Ironically, it is when I take my self out of my life, that I can be alive to the life I am living; alive to the moment, alive to the sensations of being alive, alive to the joy of having a body, awake.
 
#6
 walk through your days
step by step
try not to escape
 
#175
 pelican floating
silent rain, silent river
poetry mind returns
 
#215
 here
from where you are
is poetry’s beginning
 
#235
 with time to drift
poetry may come
or not
 
#240
 drifting