{"id":10266,"date":"2015-04-18T15:37:56","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T19:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/?p=10266"},"modified":"2015-04-18T15:37:56","modified_gmt":"2015-04-18T19:37:56","slug":"poetry-as-mentor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beginnersheart\/2015\/04\/poetry-as-mentor.html","title":{"rendered":"poetry as mentor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"William<\/a>
William Blake’s watercolor of “Age teaching youth,” a Romantic representation of mentorship.
via wikipedia.org<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So by now everyone knows it’s National Poetry Month. And I’m also writing poetry daily, as NPM coincides w\/ National Poetry WRITING Month (NaPoWriMo). It’s a very<\/em> happy month for me.<\/p>\n

Today’s poem is by a poet who has been a mentor for me in both my craft, and in his thoughts. Jack Gilbert<\/a>\u00a0was a gifted poet — winner of several prestigious awards, and continuing to write until he died,\u00a0in his late 80s. But there are poets I love for their craft (Mark Doty<\/a> always comes to mind) and poets I love for\u00a0what their craft translates: what<\/em> they say, not simply how they say it. Jack Gilbert was both, able to reveal what felt like the world’s great secrets in a single line.<\/p>\n

I’m sure this is another of those life metaphors writing continues to teach me, like age — as Blake noted — offers lessons to the young who will listen. I confess I haven’t always listened to my elders, unless they were\/ are poets. Gilbert, for instance, helped me come to terms with the fact that writing poetry isn’t easy for me. I’m not prolific, and I revise far more than I draft. When asked on NPR why he only published four books of poetry in 50 years, he responded:\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not a business with me . . . . I\u2019m not a professional of poetry, I\u2019m a farmer of poetry.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I love that. The gardener in me knows just how hard it is to prepare dirt, to sow seed, to cultivate & nurture & tend. Endure the vicissitudes of weather, the vagaries of predatory insects. It’s one of the best descriptions of writing — at least for me — ever. I’m trying to live a life where poetry can be harvested, as Gilbert did.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I’m looking at one of the books in his collected works, a book I bought before his collected works came out. A book I’ve given away several times. A book with lines like\u00a0We find out the\u00a0heart only by dismantling what\/ the heart knows.\u00a0<\/em>And\u00a0We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.\u00a0<\/em>Or\u00a0…Our lives happen between\/ the memorable.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s a poem<\/a> from his final book,\u00a0The Dance Most of All.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Waking at Night<\/em><\/p>\n

The blue river is grey at morning\r\nand evening. There is twilight\r\nat dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark\r\nwondering if this quiet in me now\r\nis a beginning or an end.<\/em><\/pre>\n
 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So by now everyone knows it’s National Poetry Month. And I’m also writing poetry daily, as NPM coincides w\/ National Poetry WRITING Month (NaPoWriMo). It’s a very happy month for me. Today’s poem is by a poet who has been a mentor for me in both my craft, and in his thoughts. Jack Gilbert\u00a0was a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":398,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[985,317,22,1],"tags":[11,1181,1187,262,427,987,318,1263,1190],"class_list":["post-10266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-poetry-month","category-national-poetry-writing-month","category-poetry","category-uncategorized","tag-beginners-heart","tag-britton-gildersleeve","tag-buddhism","tag-buddhist-blogs","tag-jack-gilbert","tag-mark-doty","tag-national-poetry-month","tag-national-poetry-writing-month","tag-poetry"],"yoast_head":"\npoetry as mentor - Beginner's Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So by now everyone knows it's National Poetry Month. 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Years spent living on the margins - in places with exotic names and food shortages - have left her with a visceral response to folks \u2018without,\u2019 as well as a desire to live her Buddhism in an engaged fashion. She\u2019s a writer and a teacher, the former director of a federal non-profit for teachers who write. She believes that if we talk to each other, we can learn to love each other (but she's still learning how). And she believes in tea. 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