Month: November 2017

Having studied other cultures and other times, it is apparent that beauty is a matter of culture, context and states of mind, even of economics and politics. Merely consider the 20th Century in which works by Picasso, Stravinsky and Balanchine were seen as ugly, tasteless and vulgar, and Soviet architecture was preferred by many.

Where verse is concerned, music is key. What a poet hears, the vernacular of the street or any other, is crafted with echoing sounds, stresses, pauses, strange words and familiar, which create an opportunity for expectation satisfied and surprise—the delight of language.

Beauty is a quality of anything, really, that provokes in us, for whatever reason, an awestruck double-take, the prolonged or re-look, re-read, re-listen, re-touch, re-think. The “live” one ends, of course—the sunset, the concert, the intimate moment—and we often strive and contrive to experience another like it

To every story,
            bliss or torment,
Beauty cries, “Brief!”
            but brings providence’ salve –
even love in grief –
            offers sacred relief.

Though I cannot say for certain what beauty is, I know that it arrives as a recognition from within, a presence, an awe or quiet joy.  Beauty can only make us better humans, especially when we remain actively receptive to it

Beauty is relative—however, it is also abundant and perennial. One type of beauty may diminish and morph into a deeper philosophical truth. Beauty can take the guise of morality and define the outer reaches of what it means to be fully human—to grow into that.

Beauty is heavy stuff. Beauty is light.
I feel something tidal, a delicious pull
where feeling and thinking circle one another.
Beauty strikes a chord. Something resonates.
The light catches its own glancing.

I never stop being astonished by the ways we’re separated from every other human being, despite our intentions and desires, despite all our good efforts. Life seems to be a somewhat random sequence of approaches and separations, each of which is deeply compelling. Many people call this Beauty.

Beauty is an inner and outer experience, but the two were truly written by the same hand. The outer world recreates the inner world, “making this thing other,” recalling the inner world to its original beauty, despite great brokenness.

Give the world something beautiful to connect with and the meaning and value of it changes with every angle it’s perceived from, not to mention subject to the influences of the person evaluating it and the context it is being experienced in.

Beauty is in stopping to matter whether anyone believes your stories because you discover the universe has long been writing for them to happen and in all the meandering, you have somehow seen the route.

Beauty evokes humility, the sense of belonging to the thing observed, the ego’s compassion for the oneness of it all.

Beauty is the flower hanging from the chandelier above the bed of the mortally ill, reminding them that eating, drinking, and being merry is not always a requirement.

The particular realm of beauty I seek in my poetry is internal, is a series of linguistic references, even configurations about human tenderness. As a poet (and even as a scholar) I work from my subconscious, one full of an array of images, events, places, faces, and relationships.

Beauty is in design….the curve, the spiral, the spider’s web, the dive of an owl for its prey, the ten thousand symphonies of the stars. It is in poetry, in art, in the creative force that rules the universe.

The mind may define something as beautiful, but it is the body that recognizes it and provides us with the sudden intake of breath, the moment when we look up and see what we’ve always seen in a new way. And if, in that moment, I am granted a perception that I can put into words, then maybe I will be lucky enough to pass it on as a beautiful poem.

In a world rendered inchoate by divisiveness and the limitations of human faculties, the words and images the poet employs connect the reader’s mind and emotions to an experience or object in the flux of the swirling events of life. Poetry grants access and focus for a mind to experience resolution and catharsis of all that besets it on individual and macro levels.

We don’t need to look for beauty in only the obvious places: mountains, vast landscapes, fireworks. One finds beauty in even the smallest of places, in the nuances of a voice, in the wings of insects, in the blue sparks of forget-me-nots. Who would want to leave such a world?

When I write, I try to not only gaze up in wonder at the waterfalls and meteor showers but also peek beneath a few rocks to see what oddly shaped forms of beauty might be lurking under there.