Grief, Hope, and a Little Stanley Kunitz
That Time of Year
In the academic world, this is the time of year full of engagements, picnics and end-of-semester galas and graduation parties. It is a little dizzying, all this celebration, especially in a time of so much pain. The service-learning end-of-semester celebrations—including an art show at a coffee shop, a poster session and recital on campus, a poetry reading at the local nursing home, a picnic at my place, and a mural unveiling at the Salvation Army, in about that order (did I mention I’ve been busy?)—have been colored by the realization that we will be working with a much smaller budget and possibly fewer staff next year due to budget cuts and the looming end of a federal grant, and that two of our most dedicated student workers are leaving the program, one because she’s graduating, and the other because she’ll start student teaching in the fall. All week I have been saying goodbye to many students whom I care for deeply, who have helped build the service-learning program I coordinate and the student groups I advise.
And there are the larger concerns, of course: The queer and allied student end-of-semester celebration was colored by the reality that Minnesota’s reputation as a queer-friendly state is in jeopardy. In Wisconsin, citizens will decide by vote whether gays and lesbians have the right to marry; some powerful Minnesotans are pushing for a similar initiative here, and the Federal Marriage Amendment is making its way through the Congress with what seems to me to be far too little fanfare or concern. Not that there isn’t anything else to worry over: Bush’s inflammatory and ill-informed speech about immigration, a foreign policy spiraling out of control, the seemingly endless war in Iraq. A student I know well, a good, hard working small town kid, will spend another year there. Even the activists in our tiny town don’t know what to do about the war.
On a more personal level, my life is taking a turn I could not have predicted—my relationship of six years is ending, I am leaving the house we own together and buying my own, much smaller, home, and my two best friends in Morris are moving away. Next year will be radically different in every possible way. The vision I had of the future—raising children with my partner, having my best friends involved in my children’s lives, living forever in our beautiful house with its blooming garden and blossoming tree—is no longer a reality. My six years in Morris have been profoundly shaped by these relationships in every way, large and small. And, because I have lived longer in Morris than in any other place since I was 18, my life, past, present, and future, has also been profoundly shaped by my time here.
But there are also joys. My best friends are leaving town for an exciting opportunity. Some of my students are going on to do amazing work in Americorps or the Jet Program or jobs in the human services and the arts. One student came back from Iraq and made it to graduation. Five years ago, when he started college, I never imagined the turns his life would take (or, frankly, that he would ever cross that stage). I feel very lucky to have been a witness to his survival, growth and change. And then there are the thank you notes I got at the end of the year from two students who told me I had made a difference in their lives, expressing themselves so eloquently. I will read them, I am sure, for years to come whenever I am down. And I have been deeply moved by how our small town is responding to news of our break up. So many friends who deeply love both me and my partner have been careful to find ways to stay connected to both of us during this difficult time. One woman I have come to know well, who was once sure she could never become friends with a lesbian, said to me yesterday, "You're not going through a break up--you're going through a divorce. I was so moved that she recognized our relationship for what it was.
Today a friend forwarded me an article from the Christian Science Monitor that included this quote from a poet from Yemen: “Other countries fight terrorism with guns and bombs, but in Yemen we use poetry. Through my poetry I can convince people of the need for peace who would never be convinced by laws or by force.” I put it on my office door. I don’t know that I believe that poetry can be used to create peace—I would have when I was in my 20s, but I’m not so sure now. Still, it is a small beacon of light in this dark world where so many people we love are in danger of dying literal or spiritual deaths because of our country's policies.
My closest friends keep asking me the question I most need to be asked at this time: “Are you writing?” The answer is no, not really. The novel I was working on is stuck mid-scene, and no matter what I do I can’t seem to move it forward. Similarly, my second book of poems is stuck in a second draft that I can clearly see needs a ton of work. (The first book is still looking for a publisher. A friend suggested I start talking about that first book in this way, as if the manuscript were a distant friend out on some long, dangerous adventure, binoculars in hand—and because it has been six years since I finished the first draft of that book, and two since I finished the most recent version, it does feel a bit like I don’t know the book anymore, like she’s been gone so long that I can’t be sure I’ll recognize her or know what to say to her when she returns). I can’t even seem to concentrate long enough to read a good book these days.
And yet I keep up with my morning pages, plugging away for a half hour each day whether I feel like it or not, sometimes breaking into tears or angry scribbling or, when I’m lucky, a line or two of poetry. I will go back to these pages later, a long time from now, when I’m ready to look back at myself in the raw and bright light of this grief from some more comfortable and probably more shadowy place, like the clearing in the woods where I would go as a child to lie down and stare up at the sun coming through the trees. I have survived hard times before, other break ups (though none like this one, the first I allowed myself to believe would last forever), other losses. I have survived other dry spells in my writing. There is something to be said for that record of survival.
It seems a little ridiculous to feel like my life is falling apart when the world at large is facing so much horror. I don’t ever want to be the kind of person who sternly tells herself to get a grip, to appreciate what she has because, after all, those poor people in Iraq or (insert country the U.S. government is terrorizing or ignoring here) have it so much worse—but then, I also can’t pretend that I really understand suffering with a capital S.
There is something to be said for hope, however it manifests in hard times. I know my life has been literally saved by poetry—that’s another story for another blog—but I find it hard to believe that poetry can create peace on a larger scale. And yet I can’t dismiss the idea, either. Stanley Kunitz, the wonderful poet who died this week at the age of 100, wrote this in 1995. I think it speaks to the kind of hope and vision I want my art, and my life as an artist, to have:
Poetry, I have insisted, is ultimately mythology, the telling of the stories of the soul. This would seem to be an introverted, even solipsistic, enterprise, if it were not that these stories recount the soul's passage through the valley of this life--that is to say, its adventure in time, in history…In an age defined by its modes of production, where everybody tends to be a specialist of sorts, the artist ideally is that rarity, a whole person making a whole thing…The craft that I admire most manifests itself not as an aggregate of linguistic or prosodic skills, but as a form of spiritual testimony, the sign of the inviolable self consolidated against the enemies within and without that would corrupt or destroy human pride and dignity…Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.
In the academic world, this is the time of year full of engagements, picnics and end-of-semester galas and graduation parties. It is a little dizzying, all this celebration, especially in a time of so much pain. The service-learning end-of-semester celebrations—including an art show at a coffee shop, a poster session and recital on campus, a poetry reading at the local nursing home, a picnic at my place, and a mural unveiling at the Salvation Army, in about that order (did I mention I’ve been busy?)—have been colored by the realization that we will be working with a much smaller budget and possibly fewer staff next year due to budget cuts and the looming end of a federal grant, and that two of our most dedicated student workers are leaving the program, one because she’s graduating, and the other because she’ll start student teaching in the fall. All week I have been saying goodbye to many students whom I care for deeply, who have helped build the service-learning program I coordinate and the student groups I advise.
And there are the larger concerns, of course: The queer and allied student end-of-semester celebration was colored by the reality that Minnesota’s reputation as a queer-friendly state is in jeopardy. In Wisconsin, citizens will decide by vote whether gays and lesbians have the right to marry; some powerful Minnesotans are pushing for a similar initiative here, and the Federal Marriage Amendment is making its way through the Congress with what seems to me to be far too little fanfare or concern. Not that there isn’t anything else to worry over: Bush’s inflammatory and ill-informed speech about immigration, a foreign policy spiraling out of control, the seemingly endless war in Iraq. A student I know well, a good, hard working small town kid, will spend another year there. Even the activists in our tiny town don’t know what to do about the war.
On a more personal level, my life is taking a turn I could not have predicted—my relationship of six years is ending, I am leaving the house we own together and buying my own, much smaller, home, and my two best friends in Morris are moving away. Next year will be radically different in every possible way. The vision I had of the future—raising children with my partner, having my best friends involved in my children’s lives, living forever in our beautiful house with its blooming garden and blossoming tree—is no longer a reality. My six years in Morris have been profoundly shaped by these relationships in every way, large and small. And, because I have lived longer in Morris than in any other place since I was 18, my life, past, present, and future, has also been profoundly shaped by my time here.
But there are also joys. My best friends are leaving town for an exciting opportunity. Some of my students are going on to do amazing work in Americorps or the Jet Program or jobs in the human services and the arts. One student came back from Iraq and made it to graduation. Five years ago, when he started college, I never imagined the turns his life would take (or, frankly, that he would ever cross that stage). I feel very lucky to have been a witness to his survival, growth and change. And then there are the thank you notes I got at the end of the year from two students who told me I had made a difference in their lives, expressing themselves so eloquently. I will read them, I am sure, for years to come whenever I am down. And I have been deeply moved by how our small town is responding to news of our break up. So many friends who deeply love both me and my partner have been careful to find ways to stay connected to both of us during this difficult time. One woman I have come to know well, who was once sure she could never become friends with a lesbian, said to me yesterday, "You're not going through a break up--you're going through a divorce. I was so moved that she recognized our relationship for what it was.
Today a friend forwarded me an article from the Christian Science Monitor that included this quote from a poet from Yemen: “Other countries fight terrorism with guns and bombs, but in Yemen we use poetry. Through my poetry I can convince people of the need for peace who would never be convinced by laws or by force.” I put it on my office door. I don’t know that I believe that poetry can be used to create peace—I would have when I was in my 20s, but I’m not so sure now. Still, it is a small beacon of light in this dark world where so many people we love are in danger of dying literal or spiritual deaths because of our country's policies.
My closest friends keep asking me the question I most need to be asked at this time: “Are you writing?” The answer is no, not really. The novel I was working on is stuck mid-scene, and no matter what I do I can’t seem to move it forward. Similarly, my second book of poems is stuck in a second draft that I can clearly see needs a ton of work. (The first book is still looking for a publisher. A friend suggested I start talking about that first book in this way, as if the manuscript were a distant friend out on some long, dangerous adventure, binoculars in hand—and because it has been six years since I finished the first draft of that book, and two since I finished the most recent version, it does feel a bit like I don’t know the book anymore, like she’s been gone so long that I can’t be sure I’ll recognize her or know what to say to her when she returns). I can’t even seem to concentrate long enough to read a good book these days.
And yet I keep up with my morning pages, plugging away for a half hour each day whether I feel like it or not, sometimes breaking into tears or angry scribbling or, when I’m lucky, a line or two of poetry. I will go back to these pages later, a long time from now, when I’m ready to look back at myself in the raw and bright light of this grief from some more comfortable and probably more shadowy place, like the clearing in the woods where I would go as a child to lie down and stare up at the sun coming through the trees. I have survived hard times before, other break ups (though none like this one, the first I allowed myself to believe would last forever), other losses. I have survived other dry spells in my writing. There is something to be said for that record of survival.
It seems a little ridiculous to feel like my life is falling apart when the world at large is facing so much horror. I don’t ever want to be the kind of person who sternly tells herself to get a grip, to appreciate what she has because, after all, those poor people in Iraq or (insert country the U.S. government is terrorizing or ignoring here) have it so much worse—but then, I also can’t pretend that I really understand suffering with a capital S.
There is something to be said for hope, however it manifests in hard times. I know my life has been literally saved by poetry—that’s another story for another blog—but I find it hard to believe that poetry can create peace on a larger scale. And yet I can’t dismiss the idea, either. Stanley Kunitz, the wonderful poet who died this week at the age of 100, wrote this in 1995. I think it speaks to the kind of hope and vision I want my art, and my life as an artist, to have:
Poetry, I have insisted, is ultimately mythology, the telling of the stories of the soul. This would seem to be an introverted, even solipsistic, enterprise, if it were not that these stories recount the soul's passage through the valley of this life--that is to say, its adventure in time, in history…In an age defined by its modes of production, where everybody tends to be a specialist of sorts, the artist ideally is that rarity, a whole person making a whole thing…The craft that I admire most manifests itself not as an aggregate of linguistic or prosodic skills, but as a form of spiritual testimony, the sign of the inviolable self consolidated against the enemies within and without that would corrupt or destroy human pride and dignity…Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.
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