It Is That Dream
It’s that dream that we carry with us
that something wonderful will happen,
that it has to happen,
that time will open,
that the heart will open,
that doors will open,
that the mountains will open,
that wells will leap up,
that the dream will open,
that one morning we’ll slip in
to a harbor that we’ve never known.— Olav H. Hauge, translated by Robert Bly
Posts tagged Robert Bly:
The Holy Longing
Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and, finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven’t experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated by Robert Bly
“A person cannot write poetry unless he or she is on the ascending energy arc. We have these times in our lives, in which a little shock comes through and we see how we could be happier, or we could have more energy … little peaks—and they’re always accompanied by a certain elation, joy, ecstasy—beautiful important moments at which you’re hitting your peak. Those are the moments out of which a poem should come. So you don’t forget that peak. If you pay attention to that peak it may return, and you’ll begin to evolve, hum, with more energy all the time. Poetry has to do with those moments and if you betray those moments by trying to get your poems in the New Yorker, or to be famous with them, or to make money with them, you’re going to destroy your own peak moments.”
—Robert Bly, from “The Ascending Energy Arc” in Talking All Morning (University of Michigan Press, 1990) Poet on Poetry Series
![“I dislike the word ‘craft,’ when we talk of poetry. ’Craft’ suggest an inanimate object, as when we say a carpenter crafts a chest of drawers. But somebody’s already made the wood. So therefore, thinking of it … my idea is this: perhaps making the poem from the beginning involves three separate areas of experience. The first experience … is interior. When the poet realizes for the first time … when he touches for the first time, something far inside of him. It’s connected with what the ancients called The Mysteries, and it’s wrong to talk of it very much. Some poets have the experience very early. Wordsworth said that he had experienced it when he was seven or eight years old. And others when they’re fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Whitman, interestingly enough, did not have this experience until he was about thirty-seven years old. Before that, he was writing merely well-crafted newspaper verse. Then, when he touched another center inside—or when he—or you can use the metaphor of finding a well if you want—or you could talk of it as breaking through an ego wall but I don’t think it’s as useful—if any person comes near that experience he or she will never forget it the rest of his [or her] life. If he [or she] writes poetry it will come from that … You can talk of that as an experience. We could call this stage wholly interior.”
—Robert Bly, from his “Craft Interview” which was conducted in the Spring, 1972, and appears in Talking All Morning (University of Michigan Press, 1990), Poets on Poetry Series.
*Note: To be continued with descriptions of poetry writing’s second and three stages of experience.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5zr5aHbJH1qe0r71o1_500.jpg)
“I dislike the word ‘craft,’ when we talk of poetry. ’Craft’ suggest an inanimate object, as when we say a carpenter crafts a chest of drawers. But somebody’s already made the wood. So therefore, thinking of it … my idea is this: perhaps making the poem from the beginning involves three separate areas of experience. The first experience … is interior. When the poet realizes for the first time … when he touches for the first time, something far inside of him. It’s connected with what the ancients called The Mysteries, and it’s wrong to talk of it very much. Some poets have the experience very early. Wordsworth said that he had experienced it when he was seven or eight years old. And others when they’re fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Whitman, interestingly enough, did not have this experience until he was about thirty-seven years old. Before that, he was writing merely well-crafted newspaper verse. Then, when he touched another center inside—or when he—or you can use the metaphor of finding a well if you want—or you could talk of it as breaking through an ego wall but I don’t think it’s as useful—if any person comes near that experience he or she will never forget it the rest of his [or her] life. If he [or she] writes poetry it will come from that … You can talk of that as an experience. We could call this stage wholly interior.”
—Robert Bly, from his “Craft Interview” which was conducted in the Spring, 1972, and appears in Talking All Morning (University of Michigan Press, 1990), Poets on Poetry Series.
*Note: To be continued with descriptions of poetry writing’s second and three stages of experience.
Lamento
He put the pen down.
It lies there without moving.
It lies there without moving in empty space.
He put the pen down.
So much that can neither be written nor kept inside!
His body is stiffened by something happening far away
though the curious overnight bag beats like a heart.
Outside, the late spring.
From the foliage a whistling—people or birds?
And the cherry trees in bloom pat the heavy trucks on the way home.
Weeks go by.
Slowly night comes.
Moths settle down on the pane:
small pale telegrams from the world.— Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly
Perhaps vowels were all created
In a moment of sorrow before creation-
A grief they’ve not been able to sing in this life
—
Robert Bly, from “It’s As If Someone Else Is With Me” (via ahuntersheart)
(via merlinaminervamerlot)
Being apart and lonely is like rain 
LonelinessBeing apart and lonely is like rain.It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains; from flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs to heaven, which is its old abode. And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city. It rains down on us in those twittering hours when the streets turn their faces to the dawn, and when two bodies who have found nothing, dissapointed and depressed, roll over; and when two people who despise each other have to sleep together in one bed- that is when loneliness receives the rivers...– Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. Robert Bly
Ask a Question Archive RSS Mobile
Centennial Theme by One by Four Studio. Powered by Tumblr.
