Letters to a Young Poet

September 21, 2018          
            
Jade Pandora            
San Fernando, California            
             
Dear Geoffrey,            
     With your latest letter received, nestled next to my trusty field journal in my leather shoulder tote which sits in its own chair next to mine, I write this letter in the San Fernando Public Library on a Friday’s beautiful late morning.  It’s near where I just came from, the Mission San Fernando Rey de España, in the Mission Hills district of Los Angeles. Where I went to pay my respects at the grave sites of my paternal grandparents over at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery nearby.            
             
     I voted for the historical atmosphere and structure of these places in which to immerse myself. To help me feel my own roots as I reply to your question concerning the crux of your identity. It seems appropriate for me to do it this way, as one real life poet to another. I feel we go through stages of such uncertainty, because life seems tentative enough. But many poets cannot help but question their state of mind when writing to find answers to what is uncovered during the act of self-discovery.              
             
     To one’s legitimacy of any kind. Birth, gender, love, spirituality, sexuality, mental health, worth by outward appearance, status, financial, job, religion, relations, skills of every ilk. The list is endless when broken down by subtext, ad Infinitum. That alone can spur on an identity crisis attack. I see it happen all the time on social media. I myself have had my moments, online and off. But they are not to be compared to your own struggle.            
             
     I was never treated like an underdeveloped child even though I was the baby of my family. I was never talked down to, or prohibited from joining in to socially connect with the adults. Nor discouraged in pursuit of my dreams. What you have experienced, and still do, is everything in the opposite.              
             
     If a child is brought into the world and often finds itself surrounded by positive affirmations by a family unit, whether blood kin or any other permutation, that child will respond as one who is part of the unit, not as a thing of indifference. As we both know: indifference is intensely more harmful than addiction, obsession, or hate.            
             
     If you have something condescending drummed into your head long enough, a portion of your world banged in like sheet metal. Warped, out of proportion. If this is as far as it goes, the distortion it creates is subtle. But continued on for years, from childhood into adulthood, how does one discern and make sense of the true boundaries?              
             
     How does one know what is normal, and where chaos between the lines begins and ends? To blur those lines. My instinct is to reply: how can one know what to answer when the misnomer of a normal concept has never been established?  Yes, that is what I am saying: Is there even such a thing as “normal”? I have come to a point in my life where it doesn’t matter.              
             
     What a society dictates is never a carbon copy observed in every individual home or family unit. There are always variables. The one you grew up in had mutated. And beyond, once you became independent from the nest to your own space, became mutated, times two, in the relationships you had already been experiencing. What seemed normal, was. Your stunted frame of references has been like viewing life through a fisheye lens. Worse. It has been distorting all of your senses.            
             
     And yet, from out of all this, I thank the Universe for the gift you have been protecting your whole life until recently. You were made to feel that writing poetry was a waste of time better spent in endeavors everyone else deemed acceptable, and fit. Fit for the mind, body, and coffers of others, for their benefit. Be damn what it was doing for you. Spitting out their contempt upon the servant boy.              
             
     So you went into yourself, to secret away the poet and his gift. The saving grace. The ultimate sacrifice. The last evidence to keep you from failing that fragile brink of sanity. You are much stronger than you realize. Because, you now question your sanity, when I say: you have never been close to insanity, to be cognoscente enough to ask. You recognize the difference by not having known both.              
             
     If anything, you are a writer, with an innate grasp of your language. Your latest letter with your question is remarkable in its complex depth and sidebar thoughts, while steering back to the main message with the fist that grips the pen. Repeatedly pounding, until the breakthrough of your freethinking realization stands, breathless, in its own light.            
             
     I hope you will allow your very capable mind to wrap itself around what I have both confirmed and suggested, while you go catch a bus and write poetry all the way to the end of the line. Then take a walk on the beach. I will be there in spirit (loving everything about the sea as I do).            
             
mentor to mentor,            
Jade            
             
 

Oliveira do Hospital      
Central Portugal      
      
My dearest J,      
     
I cannot tell you how much I was both surprised and delighted to receive three letters from you; yes, all at once. Well, that’s the way of the post round here.      
     
I am writing to you from “the green heart of Portugal”; alas, green no more after a terrible firestorm last year burnt hundreds of square miles, a result of endless ghastly pine and eucalyptus plantations. Did you know that only 1% of Portugal’s indigenous forests remain? (Something to tell your geography teacher).      
     
I will answer your letters each separately and in date order. After all, it’s more fun to receive three individual replies rather than just one long one.      
     
Clearing up your first concern immediately, our correspondence is absolutely in confidence. I fully understand there are some things a young boy needs to talk about that he feels unable to discuss with his parents. Well, that is what uncles are for!      
     
How old are you now? Nine? Ten? Forgive me, I am the wayward family uncle who forgets the birthdays of his nephews and nieces - and who travels a lot. But of course this is why you wrote to me because instinctively you thought I was someone in the family who would ‘understand’. Inasmuch as I can, I shall do my best.      
     
You say you enjoy reading, memorising and reciting poetry but are thinking of giving it up because you get horribly teased as a result. Oh my! If only I could convey to you even one tenth of the benefit gained from committing poetry to heart and mind, you would not fail to continue even if you were banished to the moon.      
     
My dearest J, this is a delicate and precious time in your life when you can easily be thrown off track. If you have a deep desire to learn poetry then do so with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and ignore there flak. Humans are designed to learn by trial and error. That means we have many trials and make many errors. Theirs are theirs and yours are yours. And the best way to navigate this strange journey is to keep as close as we can to the motivation that springs from within. So I urge you: stay true to your poetic inclinations.      
     
Your final point. You say you fight back by shouting “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” - but “it doesn’t work”. Now read carefully. When we are young we need to believe that what is true, is true always and in all cases. As we grow older we realise it is not the case. Something that is true at one level is not necessarily true at another. It is a tough realisation. Hence both the difference and similarity of “sticks & stones” versus “words”, and poetry will help you understand all this at a deep level. The fruit of perseverance will indeed be a treasure-trove.      
     
With love and affection,      
Uncle Jocelyn.      
     
     
#Rainer Maria Rilke

Oliveira do Hospital  
Central Portugal  
 
My dearest J,  
 
I have just poured myself an agreeable glass of wine to consider your second letter. This is the Dão region of Portugal. The wine is good and cheap. It is 6 p.m, 30deg Celsius, warm for late September, and I am sitting on my balcony with a view westwards towards the Caramulo mountains.  
 
You are worrying you will not be allowed to enter an artistic career, even less so as a poet. You assume your father will forbid it. I can tell you that ten years from now when such choices are to be made it will be less of a worry than currently. But young minds are like sponges, soaking up family atmospheres and unsaid expectations; sometimes falsely interpreted.  
 
As you know, your great Aunt Hilda was a woman of the theatre but was considered by the family to be ‘temperamental’; “half temper and half mental” as you recount your father saying. This has given you the idea that an artistic or poetic career will lead you to being an embarrassment to the family, to becoming mentally unstable causing your mother extra worries, and on top of that failing to earn a respectable income. And then of course there is your mother herself, my dearest sister; an avid thespian who largely gave up her theatrical pursuits when she married your father. All this you take as further ‘evidence’ that an artistic life is somehow ‘lesser’.  
 
Heavens above! My dearest J, such burdensome concerns, though real to you as experience, are largely of your own imagination. I diminish not the value of imagination (it has saved my life on occasion) but in certain circumstances it can “run away with you” leading to unnecessary worries.  
 
As a child, you are subject to your parents’ choice of upbringing - for good or ill. What is most important is to keep the spark of life alive within your heart and soul, whatever the circumstances. Keep that alive and ten years from now you will have the strength, clarity and resolve to make your own way in the world, holding your own against family wishes and expectations if need be.  
 
You mention the “sticks & stones” incidents again. Think of it like this. Words are symbols. Consider a flag; it is just a rectangle with some coloured design on it. And yet under the influence of that flag whole nations go to war. This demonstrates the flag’s symbolic power. The same is true of words - they can both hurt, and heal, at a very deep level. This is why your ‘defence’ “doesn’t work”.  
 
I am intrigued that you are also known in school as ‘the meccano king’ and have built an 8’6” working model of the Eiffel Tower with lifts going up and down, driven by a clockwork motor. How splendid. I can assure you that a practical and inventive mind coupled with a poetic mind attuned to other realms is indeed a wonderful and precious combination and would certainly lend itself to kinetic art as well.  
 
With love and affection  
Uncle Jocelyn  
 
 
#Rainer Maria Rilke

Hotel Casa Penhas Douradas,    
Serra da Estrela Mountains  
Central Portugal  
   
My dearest J,  
   
Today is hot so I have travelled with your aunt to a lake high up in the Estrela mountains where there is a new ‘boutique hotel’ - expensive but we have stretched ourselves to a couple of cappuccinos which they do really well. At 1500m it is cool, and with stunning views over Covilha to the south. I shall later take a swim in the lake.  
   
And so to your third letter - the nightmares which began the day after grandpa died. You describe it very clearly, also becoming fearful of sudden noises and of going outside. And now you are worrying you might be going slightly mad and end up in a mental institution. My dearest J, I can absolutely assure you, you will NOT end up in a mental institution - and having nightmares in a dormitory of 20 plus boys telling you to shut up and “go and see matron” does nothing to change this.  
   
What you are experiencing is known as ‘family karma’. Some are more extreme than others but they apply to everyone. No-one escapes this. Those who have fought wars, mostly conscripted against their will, have had experiences they were unable to come to terms with themselves, your father included - and so they get passed down the generations.    
   
Everyone has their own ‘portion’ of karma, if I can put it that way. And yet, hidden in it somewhere, somehow, is a precious gift released into your life when you finally find your own peace on the matter. In that sense, you face it not only for yourself but for your father and grandfather, (and for your ancestors too as I learned from my travels in the Americas).  
   
Do not take what I am saying as an extra burden. You do this for yourself and the more you stay true to your own path, the more you genuinely help both yourself and others. Since I am sitting next to your wonderful Aunt Veronika who writes fairytales, I’ve just had the idea to send you one of hers, “The Two Owls”. Here it is: https://www.wattpad.com/story/156554442-the-two-owls  
   
There is a common misconception that doing what energises us is ‘selfish’. Duty demands we are to ‘serve others’ and ‘not to count the cost’. Well, there is a right kind of selfishness and a wrong kind of selfishness. And it is the right kind of selfishness that will ultimately lead us to serve others in the best way.  
   
One day you will surely come to a full understanding of these nightmares and, as the Buddhists say, “understanding relieves suffering”. I am convinced you will then experience a flowering of your artistic and poetic expression. In this respect I shall be your staunchest ally.  
   
The best you can do right now, and I know I am repeating myself, is to stay true to your desire to learn and recite poetry off by heart. And by the way, how about starting to write some of your own? Or maybe you already have?  
   
With love and affection,    
Uncle Jocelyn.  
   
   
   
#Rainer Maria Rilke

Tábua
Central Portugal
 
My dearest J,
 
Well what luck! I drove into town to the post-office where they know me well and Anna-Maria immediately dug behind the counter and pulled out another letter from you, arrived from Oporto this very morning. So now I am sitting in a bistro-cafe, newly opened by a Belgian lady who grew up here, and will write my reply in time to catch today’s post.
 
I can see that you have an unendingly vivid imagination and have set up for yourself another inner conflict. Whilst you are sitting in a comfortable library thinking about rhyming words, in other parts of the world people are starving and frantically trying to stay alive amidst falling bombs. And you feel guilty that what you are doing is being “unfair to them” and that the contrast between these two worlds is maybe “very unchristian”.
 
In other words, you are questioning the value of poetry in an unjust and politically indifferent world - and hence question the value of your own poetic desire. The essence of my two-fold answer is guided by the poet Adrian Crick.
 
First, to quote him, “If we allow ourselves to be brutalised by a brutal world, brutality wins”. This implies poetic endeavour is vital, more urgent than ever. Consider World War I poets Wilfrid Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves. And more recent poets - Ciarán Carson, Carol Ann Duffy, Irina Ratushinskaya.  
 
Artistic expression amidst mud, horror and injustice is one route to saving grace. This is why dividing-walls around the globe are covered in artwork and poetry. If it is possible to see the whole world in a grain of sand then it is the poet’s responsibility to express that in inspiring words. If the pomposity of politicians can be pricked by a short poetic ditty, then poets - step up. It is in the midst of the most ‘fallen’ of circumstances that the poet needs to speak most cogently, urgently and powerfully.
 
Second, poetry is a form of ‘soft power’ with huge longevity. More powerful than whole armies, a poem can change the mood of an entire nation. Long-term cultural shifts for the better can be driven by poetry. Powerful words in the hands of poets last much longer than the short-term scripted words of politicians. Though both understand the symbolic power of words (see my second letter) a poet uses words to inspire humane action from the bottom up whereas politicians use words as motivation to inhumane actions from the top down.
 
So my dearest J, there is absolutely no reason at all to feel guilty about your poetic pursuits. On the contrary, you are grounding yourself to blaze a trail into the future for the betterment of humankind - as indeed is the genuine role of any artistic endeavour.
 
I can see I’ve just got time to post this now before Anna-Maria closes up the post-office for the day. I guess the other three letters are still awaiting collection and all four will arrive more-or-less together.
 
With love and affection,  
Uncle Jocelyn.  
 
(PS: Your Aunt Veronika sends her love too)
 
 
 
#Rainer Maria Rilke

September 27, 2018    
     
Ahavati      
The Future      
     
Dear Ahavati,      
     
     I write to you from the future, where I perceive you as just a baby, with so many lifetimes to evolve.  Here, in the Library of Light, where everything is recorded in your Book of Lives, I smile at your accomplishments, and the gift of poetry you have countless times chosen to procure a deeper understanding of . . .life, after life.      
     
     I see Autumn arrived under an umbrellic cloud-cover cooling the sun's volcanic wrath.  It's been a long, arid summer that holds on fiercely to what little time it has to survive.  The rivers are swollen from hurricane Florence, and the stagnancy in rogue pools has bred ravenous mosquitos.      
     
     I watched you film a circle of bats, their sonar pulse emitting a feeding frenzied frequency from a whirlpool of wings of air, their mouths ecstatically agape for the feast;  your childlike fascination was amazing to behold.  And your sadness over the nature of life: circular birth and death in the earthen realm, where everything is cyclic.        
     
     Right now, you think poetry mirrors seasons in its ability to adapt to the readers perception; that's an important point of this competition.  To delve deep into your intention:  why do you write; are you truly called to write.        
     
     Yes; you are.  It is drafted in volumes of blueprinted scrolls, crystal to our multifaceted view.   And somewhere inside you, amid the cloud of human armour, you know too.    
     
     You have questioned yourself, traveled back to your earliest memory of verse.  How it infiltrated your senses as a mother's milk: warm, nourishing to your spirit.  Remember the burst of enlightenment that accompanied the reading of it.  Or, how you carried it for years before locking it away in a trunk, filled with poems, stolen years later.        
     
     You wrote about everything you could imagine to challenge yourself: a blade of grass, coffee bean,  pasta noodle, even an apple seed.  Each subject took on new life, developed a soul, became a sentient being in your mind's eye.  You composed like there was no tomorrow because there wouldn't be enough to give life to every tangible object in the world: a grain of sand from the rock that tumbled  off the mountain in an avalance; a cottonwood seed carried across country in the grip of a thunder storm's breath.      
     
     In high school, what small amount of poetic time you were allotted, seemed mundane amid an atmosphere of flaccid classroom attention.  You were hardly given an intimate moment to bond with the works of great poets before being whisked off to conjugate a verb or dissect a paragraph.        
     
     You yearned for guidance in the art, an opportnity to expand knowledge, to delve into the psyche of poetic form and uncover its secret storage of existence.  You craved like-minded individuals whose blood was black from ink, those who knew the ancient language of the poem and had memorized the formation of its bones.  Who innately knew the hieroglyphics carved by life in its terracotta tomb. 
     
    With the exception of a few good teachers, college failed miserably to provide you with the connection you sought.  And before you realized, you were married, settling for the ordinary life with t-ball, PTA's, and dance instruction.  Not that you regret experiencing motherhood, nor being a wife.  It was a merely sense of displacement you could never shed despite how hard you tried to conform.      
     
     Society will tell you motherhood is the most natural aspect of being a woman.  And, you think perhaps they're right.  But, what about the most natural aspect of being human? What of that? There is but one common denominator for humanism despite being a child or adult, a parent or not, male or female ( gay, lesbian, or transgender ), and that is love. Love is the natural aspect of being human.      
     
     People pontificate that Love is a noun but it's not; it's a verb.  For you, it's poetry.   While you have enemies, allow me to remind you that you would have none if you were not going in the right direction.  The greater the battle the sweeter the reward, the deeper the verse from the archives of your soul; the one that remembers where you're from, and where you'll return to.      
     
     Ahavati, let this time in your life be a reminder that it is merely a preparation for the next life.  Remember how far you've come, and how much you've overcome.  Challenges are just that, and you have risen above despite attempts to distract your thoughts from the very treasure you seek: the poem.        
     
     You have not forsaken it, nor will it you.  Forget this not, as if you ever could. I know it would be impossible - and so do you.      
     
     Write right through them all, you unstoppable Survivor you.  You verse of Light; You Poem.  
     
     With Love from the future,  I remain      
     
     Always with you      
     
     
P.S.  You're smiling      
 
 
#RainerMariaRilke