Putting It On

Poets write verses and verses, all words, and in this, they remain anonymous. To read the romantic beauty of WB Yeats prose, you can not tell this comes from the hand of a particularly fiery but well dressed Irish alcoholic. To read the celebral vastness of Eliot, how are you to know reading from a man straight-laced, humourless man who was celibate for a good portion of his adult life.

The appearance of the poets (physically) is in part in form of their prose. When we think of writers, or more specifically poets, we think of a certain appearance, a certain standard form that we expect, that we demand, a poet appears to us. This reflects their personal lifestyles (and in effect our own), their own out look on life, and more often than not, as a slice of modern society.

The picture above shows two different poets. Both are dressed differently. Both have different hairstyles. Both are differently groomed. If we were there, at the very instant this photograph was taken, it would be fair to say, they would probably smell a lot differently. They delievered their verse a lot differently. One spoke of change in dusty lecture halls, the other on brightly lit stages, however both represented change, revolution, both remained poets. They represented the 1960s: an America in social upheavel.

The man on the left, a pillar of popular culture, is instantly recognizable. He is the Jokerman, the Court Jester, he was the First Man To Go Electric, Mr. Rolling Stoned himself, Bob Dylan. The other, to the untrained eye, is not as easy to recongize. Yet he takes the form of what we all expect a poet to look like. I mean, jeez, look at him. Long scruffy beard, unkempt hair (balding!), a pair of poorly positioned glasses, a cigarette baking in hand, cheaply dressed. His appearance is one which we identify with that of a poet.

The poet featured is Allen Ginsberg, the most famous Beat poet and writer of 'Howl', perhaps one of most infamous poems of 20th century. It is appearance that defines him however ... that silhouette, the beard, the glasses. Throughout history, the physical appearance of a poet feeds their entire legacy. When we think of Byron, Schelley and Keats, the great Romantics, we picture suave young men, well-dressed, dashing figures, with a musket in hand, a feather in the other, fighting for the good causes of Europe, and their own demons. The Victorian era (Tennyson, Wordsworth, Browning) conjures up rather more staid images of old men with long beards, sitting in houses in the Lake Districts surrounded by dusty volumes of verse.

Rimbaud, Verlaine - the French symbolists, lousy Absinthe-smirking angels, bathing in the grim of their existence, living in rags, or the Lost Generation, Hemingway, Stein, Carlos Williams, wearing in their Parisian cafes, the jaunty neck-ties, the pinstripe suits - Hemingway with his well-clipped beard. Perhaps though it is the Beats that most typically personify our image of an poet-artist. We have covered Ginsberg, his beard and his glasses, but consider Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky and great sundown Jack (yes, im writing about him again). These men dressed as vagabonds pretty much, and existed on the very fringes of society to learn, and ply, their trade. I mean, when Jack would stagger into a bar in late 40s San Fran, you’d know it was him ... Christ, you'd smell the cheap wine on his breath, you’d see the railway grease in his hair, his ripped jeans, the coat he was wearing, that he traded with some drifter down San Luis Obispo way - ah now that’s a poet, that’s the taste in ya mouth, that’s a poets levity!...but i have an obvious slant on things.

Of all the Beats, the Zen poet Gary Snyder represents a far cleaner, healthier image of verse. A practicing Zen Buddhist, Snyder maintained a well-groomed veneer very much in tune with his environment. Here is a man that lived on very little material goods (and still does, might I add), but was tidy, confident and generous. Not the stumbling sundown wine-drunk Jack, bearded Ginsberg, suave young Byron, or coffee-sipping Williams, but an actual member of society you can admire for their humility and obvious refusal to be drawn into a fad, or a typical appearance that we deem they must have.

The lyricists can be included in this too. Jim Morrison’s image was almost larger than his body of work, his lyrics or poetry. The famous 'Young Lion' photograph came to personify the late 60s West Coast era, and Morrison himself fashioned his own very animal, very sexual, enduring image - tight-leather pants, long hair, before he left for Paris, went fat and grew a Ginsberg-like beard (a poetic phase?). Think Dylan, think Lou Reed (all clad in black), think Iggy Pop, think Bowie - poets in their own sense - with distinct and lasting images. Think of a New Zealand poet. For most of us, we will either picture Sam Hunt or James K. Baxter. Both atypical in their dress-sense, Baxter followed Ginsberg’s sense of ill community, both had great big beards, and Hunt - well, a slyly fashioned bard in the truest sense.

So when you think about it, a poet’s appearance mirrors that of the very society they are trying to decipher. The particular image may be crafted through vanity, or a genuinely felt need to become one of the downtrodden - but still eternally important to their gift as a whole.

And hey, its fun to grow a beard too.

Five Seven Five

Simplicity is very important in life. Or at least it should be. We all know this, but often find ourselves in complex situations, tanglements of our own creation. Yea, sometimes this is necessary (in terms of experience) but in most times, its not. A colour is usually black or its white. An answer is either yes or its no. Something is either right or its wrong. You either do something, or you dont. Cold hard beautiful reality - very simple.

Haiku, one of my favourite forms of poetry, is no different. In fact, Haiku embodies this very ideal - simplicity - to evoke emotions and imagery, that longer, more complex poems usually fail to do. Haiku is a form of poetry which is derived almost completely from Japanese culture. The word itself is a combination of two words, hokku (the oldest type of Japanese simple prose) and haikai (which translates directly as verses). The shape and wording structure of haiku is the strongest reinforcement of simplicity. It relies on syllables, or sounds, with a five syllable first line, a seven syllable second line and a five syllable third line (5 - 7 - 5). In this very basic unrhyming format (using only simple words and grammer), Haiku sets out to paint a mental picture of colour and sadness, through beauty, with its feature (particularly older Japanese haiku) being the appearance of a kigo, or season word - to gain the connection to the physical world, through the metaphysical. The typical themes of haiku are nature, feeling (usually emotive) and melancholy.

Older japanese haiku is dominated by one man above all others. He is Basho, a poet from the 17th century whose name is as recongisable to followers of haiku, and DT Suzuki, or Alan Watts is to Zen. Basho was the master of brief but perfectly clear haiku. He had the rare ablity to create atmosphere, usually through the aforementioned sadness and melancholy, and that ablity still resonates today, with his popularity still huge in Japan.

An example or two will show this..

Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing.

[Softer, gentler, and more graceful, Basho touches on the peaceful aspects on his existance her]

Ah morning glory -
even you
have let me down

[Perfect, perfect haiku ... sad, melanholic, required no image but building such defined emotion]

Haiku has evolved somewhat since Basho's days. The form began to extend out of Japan and before long, had seduced Europeans and Americans with its simplicity and flow. The famous Zen writer RH Blyth was responsible for much of this spread, yet its was the Beat Generation (typically) of the 40s and 50s that discovered the form in its own right, and evolved in ways that the older poets could not have dreamed of. The champion of this, ah sundown soul, ah angel-headed hipster, ah minute mute man, was Jack Kerouac.

Jack was a keen admirer of Zen and Buddhism and it was his interest in this that led him to haiku. Yet, as he always tended to, Jack wanted to adapt the form to make it more real to him, more rich, more American. In developing his own style which he began to describe as American Haiku, Jack injected a sadness and melancholy that even the old master Basho would have been proud of. The haiku, which he also described as Dharma Pops, or Blues verse, abandoned Bashos format of form, kigo (very often), and even the centuries old 5-7-5.

That said, take it away Dulouz...

"I don't think American Haikus should worry about syllables because American speech is something again...bursting to pop"

Chief Crazy Horse
looks tearfully north
The first snow flurries

[My favourite amongst Jack's Dharma Pops - oh so sad, oh so clear - and with a strong nod to changing beauty of nature]

Evening coming -
the office girl
Unloosing her scarf.

[Jacks typical American form, strongly western but painting such a vivid, and again sad, image]

Snap your finger
stop the world -
rain falls harder.

[Jack gets sly here, tipping his hat to his Zen followings, building a strong metaphysical picture, with little connection at all to historical haiku form]

Note that, Jack wrote much empty verse in his haiku, i admit, when bitter, and cheap wine drunk, it was shotgun verse, he surely knew it, but his best haiku are worthy of the heights occupied by the Basho, and the old masters.

In recent years, modern haiku has evolved more. The American form has gained the fullest momentum, while the older, more natural form has lost ground. The form is seperating itself further from the true haikai, creating a more bastard form of verse, but one that still packs a punch. Ah so, Alexis Rotella , and thank you Wikipedia...

Just friends:
he watches my gauze dress
blowing on the line.

[A real diamond in the rough. The emotion, misguided love, is strong and sad here]

The internet too has spawned a whole new sub-form to haiku. Usually less educated, but enthusastic, you can find the odd diamond in the rough. An example by Harriot West...

reaching where
the hose won’t
— summer rain

[simple, descriptive, excellent!]

Haiku is one of the oldest forms of poetry, though as we have discovered it is one that is in a constant state of evolution. I think Basho would grin at the newest form, its simplicity, and while not fully understanding their form, he would certainly appriceate their energy. I'd suspect Jack would be less positive, but, hell, he was a hard man to deal with.

Like a Fire on the Sun

Out of a generation that gave birth to some of the greatest song-writers of all time, there is one man that stands above all the others. Yes, this is a big call. Yes, the music world has created some great lyricists. The sixties themselves produced some of the greatest and most accessible wordsmiths in the history of modern man. Though while Lennon had his 'Glass Onion's' and his 'Warm Guns', Morrison, his acid-laced visions of Los Angeles, Young and Mitchell, their bleeding-heart felt musings, Paul Simon, his heroes on the fringes of society, The Jokerman - Bob Dylan occupied his own spot ahead of a very talented bunch, in pure ability to write, to describe, and to perceive the changing world he lived in.

Dylan has canvassed most all topics important to men, women, life and living in his long career. His early days (up to Blonde on Blonde) were marked by protest songs, and social commentaries that contained some of the most memorable lyrics in modern music. Songs such as Oxford Town, A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall, Masters of War, and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll all spring instantly to mind. In Oxford Town, Dylan addressed the civil rights violence in specific cases during the early 60s, while ‘Hard Rain’ speaks of injustice, and suffering…

I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept a-drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’,
…and it’s a-hard, it’s a-hard, it’s a-hard, it’s a-hard,
And it’s a-hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

[A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, Bob Dylan, The Free Wheelin Bob Dylan, 1962]

Bob was so many more things in verse too. His biblical references and obscure literary hooks have won admiration from intellectuals for years. He drew on poets such as Rimbaud, Eliot, Yeats, and most obviously Dylan Thomas and folk-poet Woody Guthrie for inspiration. He counted the Beats as great inspirations, and was good friends with Allen Ginsberg and Michael McClure. With his most notable literary achievement, Dylan is the only the song writer to ever be nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature, securing his status, perhaps as a modern day poet.

It would be careless to not include love as one of Dylan’s great topics. Dylan wrote so expertly of the joy, and pain, and misunderstanding of love. He was lucky enough to have some strong women in his life – his muses, if you will. The early albums contained multiple references to Suze Rotolo and Joan Baez. Its All Over Now, Baby Blue, that most tortured of love ballads, described his bleeding heart and the end of his relationship with Baez. In later times, women such as Clydie King and Carolyn Dennis provided him with beauty and turmoil, and he had a child with both.

But it is the famous Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands Sara Lownds that became one of the most written-about women in the history of modern art. Lownds was that rare woman – the ultimate muse. In her, Dylan found all the perfection, imperfection, beauty, pain, strength and weakness that he would ever need. And his songs of her … wow. To anyone who hasn’t heard it, listen to the album Blood on the Tracks. Up there with On the Road, Visions of Cody and Leonard Cohen's Songs of Love and Hate as life-changing art for me. It is the best description of lost love ever. I could quote literally dozens of Dylan songs her but I’ll make it just two.

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?

[Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, Blonde on Blonde, 1966]

People tell me it's a sin
To know and feel too much within.
I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring.
She was born in spring, but I was born too late
Blame it on a simple twist of fate.

[Simple Twist of Fate, Blood on the Tracks, 1975]

Dylan and Lownds were married for 12 years, and the two had four children together. Yet her legacy will be eternally infused with his. Few women in the history of modern music, and even the history of verse (an except perhaps Yeats’ Maud Gonne) have had such an affect on an artist as Lownds had on Dylan.

I could write continually about Bob Dylan, his themes, his art and his fine lyrics. But it will all be just words. Instead I encourage you to listen to Dylan, starting with his early stuff, his raw, angry verse, and then onto the Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde tracks, and into John Wesley Harding, and Blood on the Tracks. Admittedly some of his recent stuff is harder to decipher, but we all grow old and cynical. Everyone can find something honest and good in what Dylan has to say.

A Pause from Thinking

All of us need an escape from reality now and then. The constant affliction, the longing, the quest for a better life, love, that score of happiness or simply a better way to think, is only found through the endurance of the worse of times, and the sharpest, un-surest contours of the soul. The constant flow of all things, good and bad, can make kings of us all, make fools of us all, make us crane our heads and think certain cynical thoughts about even the most beautiful of situations and moments. We must take so much in, in terms of our own experience and journey, and there seems to be little respite (starts a little like last week, doesnt it? hmm, oh well, im bitter enough)

That is why we turn to the bottle, the tab, the line or the needle to suspend that noise for a time.

The poet, in his or her heightened state of metaphysical awareness, has almost always looked to these vices to keep the mind (in ceaseless chatter) at bay, or as Byron once described alcohol ‘a pause from thinking’. This is one function that alcohol or drugs will take in a poet’s life, to ease the strain, though often, with any vice, it can consume the taker. There are many famous cases of this, through poetry, and literature history, and especially in popular music over the last fifty years. Poets such as Kerouac, Thomas, and Bernstein are the best example of this in poetry. Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Elliott Smith are all examples of great songwriters (and in that regard modern poets) who let their necessity for escape (through vice), along with their shear brilliance, consume them. Yet the use of drugs is also used in great affect to broaden the mind, to awaken self-pity (the poet’s oldest friend) or open the eyes to true meaning, and in this a poet (a true visionary) will always rejoice. Most of our favourite poems and songs have fallen under (if not the general influence, at least in a catalytic role) the influence of drugs.

Now I am not advocating the use of alcohol and drugs at all, simply trying to demonstrate the function of them in their long and lengthy relationship with the poet. The strongest of people can continue without these vices, find happiness despite the pain, but as any real poet would tell you, an poet is not a stronger person. Neither am I. I too need the odd escape (though im not a real artist yet). I’m sure most of you would be in the same camp.

Since the first writers of prose, tortured souls have sought refuge in alcohol and drugs. Early Greek and Roman poets often turned to large excess of wine. The great haiku poet Basho found constant solice in sake. Of the romantics, Coleridge developed an opium addiction that would last a lifetime, and Byron was well-known for his love of wine, and his great writing sessions in poppy seed-induced hazes. Arthur Rimbaud, my favourite 19th century poet, used great quantities of absinthe and hash, to keep his beasts at bay, and feed his creative soul. Indeed, French symbolist poetry formed an almost absolute bond with absinthe in particular with poets such as Verlaine, Mallarme and Baudelaire all enjoying its sway from one time to another.

These trends continued into the twentieth century. W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Federico Lorca and e.e.cummings all depended on alcohol in some form, while Jack Kerouac’s reliance on cheap wine, though his creative spark at times, ultimately caused his death. The great Charles Bukowski accepted his dependence on alcohol and embraced it, often using it as a central theme in his writing, and a point to which he could expertly relate other ideas. Leonard Cohen (ah great sundown L.C) has been quoted as saying LSD ‘opened his eyes to reality’, and has advocated its use.

The poets of modern music, particularly from the 1960s, seem to have agreed with this notion. Most of Jim Morrison’s early lyrics were written on Los Angeles rooftops under acid-induced visions, while Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote a large amount of Led Zeppelins best songs on large amounts of hash. Lou Reed perhaps wrote of drugs the best, The Velvet Underground’s opus ‘Heroin’ explores that particular vice in its entirety, through verses of pleasure and pain, with its musical score matching its lyrical intensity. Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to marijuana (an incident made famous by the song Doctor Robert, off the album Revolver) which led to LSD, and other drugs, but also some of the greatest music of modern history. Neal Young sung beautifully of the addict in his song ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’. The list goes on and on and on.

And so the poet is a uniquely human position. It is un-doubtable what a poet can achieve with ‘assistance’ but it is also obvious the harm it can do. Their gift often overrides their strength, and so the role of alcohol and drugs, as an escape, is very common. Does the usage of drugs justify the art they can create? Does it justify their sometimes premature deaths? The answers to these questions are left to the reader.

I shall close with a verse from Steven Jesse Bernstein’s poem ‘Its Just A Little Bit of Everything’, which draws on his drug-taking and alcohol usage. Bernstein, born in 1950, was a post-beat poet who suffered from the veils of addiction most of his adult life. He achieved notoriety in the late 1980s when he was swept up in the punk movement emanating from Seattle. He was signed by the famous Sub Pop Records as a spoken word artist, and opened for Nirvana many times. He committed suicide in 1991, motivated by in large by his substance abuse. His story has its roots in the many of the lives of great poets, and in that, the true human dependence on escape.

[for an eye into Bernsteins fine prose, check out him reading 'This Clouded Heart' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdmkLcf13EE on Youtube]

Living in the afterglow
Of a flame that burned out long ago
And when the darkness fades from my window shades
It’ll be a little bit of everything
That brought me down to this.