October 24, 2010: The Tragically Hip - Poets

October 24, 2010: The Tragically Hip - Poets: youtube.com/watch?v=fBNGfFqaFu8

I will never be the poet. Though I write in poetic forms I will never be the poet. Poetry does not flow through me and I move far too slowly for it's world.

My first conceptions of the word were in poetic forms as music came Sunday mornings from my Father's basement (and it was my Father's basement though we all lived there, it was his room entire) and songwriters were revered as the poets of our time. This is where I learned my early literature, from Bob Dylan songs and Neil Young. And though it be my first love, though I still strive toward it (and, to a certain degree, have embodied) I think I knew early that I would never be the poet. Writer, yes.

And where would one find oneself as a poet writing in Canada? The Canadian poet is without any weight set against the American, the Russian, the French. If I have to read one more "poem" about winter by a Canadian "poet" I might tear the whole thing apart. There is no vibrancy and strength like the American. No despair like the Russian. No tragedy, no pain like the French. The Canadian poet has some neutral time to observe and neutrally comment among waves of grey. Granted, some poets from Canada are magnificent, but they are not Canadian poets generally, they've moved beyond. Leonard Cohen had to go to Greece and America and Cuba to find his words and move past his mentor, the Canadian poet Irving Layton.

I will write, I will write poems, but I'll never be the poet. The poet should be the painter of the writing spheres. Solitude and the bending of perceptions are important, the movement and experience. Never read your poems aloud. Write a pile of words from the floor to the ceiling before even considering a small collection. Pass out your words to others, but forget what had been said always.

My favorite story of one who could conceivably be considered the poet found him in a bar showing off his work to the people within. When the door opened all the paper flew out with the wind, fell into a stream of water on the ground and was swept away to the sewer. And he stood and watched, calm.