Enjoying Robert Graves (Again): On 'Being' a 'Poet'

I cannot say that Robert Graves influenced or inspired by writing, both stories and poems. I can say, with complete knowingness, that reading this kind of knowledge of his inspired me to trust and then follow my own inspiration - the touchCallingWhisperTug of the Source - in my writing.

This interview with Leslie Norris, also a great 'British' poet (acknowledging that poetry is universal), was published in The Listener 28 May 1970.

Here are a couple of questions from Norris and Graves' response.

Dharma

Do you consider yourself fortunate inhaving been a poet?

There's no alternative. If you're born that way, that's your fate - and you've got to do your best. It's a way of life. You have to be in the world, but not of the world, as the Sufis say. You can't cheat and you must only say what you have to say and not what people would like you to say.

I love this! No 'cheating'. Be true to 'you'. And ... Thy will be Done.

And ... a Poet is ...?

You've written that you write poems for poets. Do you mean you write poems exclusively for poets, or for people who live as poets do?

A poet is a person who lives and thinks in a certain way. A poet doesn't necessarily write poems. It is simply an attitude, and there are a great many more poets around than meet the eve. I think about one person in 20 is perhaps a poet. The ones who are not poets expect something of what they think is poetry, which I don't propose to give them. What I write is for people to understand who are on the same, as they say, wavelength as myself. I don't write for an audience at all really: I write for myself. But the audience is presumably there.

The Source (of 'Inspiration')

The Bridge is always open from meYouMe to the Source. The Source that touchesCallsWhispersTugs at us to write this ... paint this ... dance this.

Tending to our side of the Bridge is our Duty, our Dharma. The other side of the Bridge and what lies there takes care of Itself quite perfectly, thank you. Once we do our work on our side of the Bridge then Inspiration is AlwaysOn.

Namaste! I bow to and honor the light within you!

Soundless Music and Storyless Story: Yves Klein's Symphony and Idries Shah's The Book of the Book

Nothing quite says something as much as nothing does, sometimes.

There was a performance of Yves Klein’s Monotone Symphony in New York last month. Klein is a fascinating and disruptive artist. His Symphony is in two movements. The first movement is a sustained D major chord that lasts 20 minutes. The second movement is a 20 minute period of 'silence' - i.e. no musicians playing but just ambient sound.

The Beginning of the NY Concert

And ... In France they Kiss on Main Street

And here is a video of a 'Happening' with Yves Klein, the musicians, blue paint, the artist's models and audience. Quite different from 2013 ... hmm ...

You can also listen to the performance of March 9, 1960 here.

The Book of the Book by Idries Shah

Stories without story? Now THAT is hard to do!

I bought The Book of the Book in the late seventies (I was buying all of Idries Shah's books available at that time in my life). It was 'controversial'. The first 16 pages of the book has text - story within story without story about story - and the rest of the book was blank paper. Not even page numbers. Interestingly, and as an artist I am so grateful for this, you can read the complete The Book of the Book on googlebooks. It will take you about five minutes. Hah! Five minutes to read. But ... how long to digest?

I recommend The Book of the Book to all writers in the genres of magical realism and speculative fiction. In fact, I wholeheartedly recommend all of Shah's books to writers of magical realism and SF. For ... there is much there about 'causality', in both its hidden and obvious elements. For ... there is much in his books about building worlds. For ... there is much there about how observers (unknowing) create worlds and hide worlds from themselves purely by deciding what their perceptions 'mean'. For ... there is much there about the 'real' and the 'really real'. And, on a personal note, I take inspiration from his work to write to 'change the cultural world' by inviting my readers to think about what kind of life they really want to live in the really real world.

Stories are healing. This is the way it is. Stories are also, manifestly, the opposite. Readers are there for stories that heal. Something different this way comes.

Namaste! I bow to and honor the light within you!

A Small Masterpiece: The Blue Germ by Maurice Nicoll (Review)

This is a review that I wrote last year for Amazon. I'm publishing it again since I'm planning to review some fiction by 'Seekers of the Truth', as Nicholl most certainly was, and, indeed, by finders of 'The Truth'.

Do seekers of the truth write different kinds of stories that are 'healing' to culture, in a general sense? The answer is ... yes. That idea interests me, since I have a deep and passionate interest in how we, collectively, create 'culture/society', and how that creation in turn informs us or makes us ignorant and unthinking. Anywy ... enough preamble ...

Maurice Nicholl, who wrote this under the nom de plume of Martin Swayne, was one of the great Fourth Way teachers of the 20th century. Nicholl wrote fiction in the years roughly 1911 to 1924. This is "science fiction". And it is science fiction of the type and style written in this period in the UK. Its style is quintessentially "British", its pace Edwardian, its techniques simple yet setting up a protagonism between points of view spiritual and materialistic. And it is a flowing, compelling story. Except for the techniques used to make manifest the ending.

The story of The Blue Germ is simple and intriguing. Two doctors, one Russian and one English, discover a bacillus with powerful properties. The story begins with Dr Harden tripping over his black cat, hitting his head, and, in the consciousness shock that follows he comes to the perception of an immense scientific discovery. Together with his colleague Sarakoff they perfect the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus. The properties of which are ... to kill all other germs in the human body. And the consequence of this ... well ... human beings will be immortal. Unless they are actively killed, of course.

So, what better way for an Edwardian scientist to test his "theory" than to test it out ... in real life. And so the pair of them introduce the bacillus into the water supply of Birmingham in Midlands England. The bacillus flourishes and creates the "Blue Disease", since fingernails and eye whites turn blue. Together with the fact that all those who are currently ill have their illnesses removed at a fast pace.

Well ... huge changes in "society" will be needed ... and ... how will different characters and personalities react to the prospect of immortality? Hah!

The Blue Germ is actually a compelling story well told. The conciseness of it is pretty similar to that of Michael Crichton. Style too, stripping away the Edwardian-ness of Nicholl writing as Swayne. And the story ... well ... there are many stories about "germs" in our modern consciousness. We seem to love them! The Blue Germ would make a marvelous, Crichton-esque movie. The ending? Forgive the book the ending - it is "poor". But getting there is not! Enjoy it. No guns, car chases, electronic eavesdropping, mayhem-in-general. What would you do if you were told that you are now immortal ... exactly, exactly as you are (age, appearance etc.) right now.

Namaste! I bow to and honor the Light within you!