THE POET

menard, tanner (2022) THE POET. Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

I challenge the notion that there is something that a poem does that makes it a poem. This is to say, there is nothing that a poet does that gives a poem a quality that we call ‘poem.’ A poem comes into being of its own accord. A poem enters because, to quote Ariana Reines, a human wants to put their life on the line. It is true that there are traditions of poetry throughout the world that have rigidly defined the physicality of a poem. Many poetic traditions, at least in the last couple thousand years have involved metrical patterning, a sense of rhyme or particularity about how sonic symmetries are in dialogue with time. In this sense, the physical features, that is the lexicality & sonic quality of poetry became conventionalized by symmetry & rhythmic predictability of sonority. Still, in many of these traditions, including in the West, some poets, more willing to admit to it or be aware of the presence of ‘another’ have consciously dictated directly from the poem itself. The physical quality of a work of poetry does not define the fundamental nature of a poem. This quality exists outside of conventional notions that a poem can be defined by a particular configuration of physical features. Just look at how wildly the physicality of poetry can change from culture to culture or from one epoch to the next. The poem exists without the physical manifestation & it can shift reality if it wants to be observed. There is no such thing as an aesthetic relation between poetry & form. Let me further, like a body does not define the intrinsic quality of a human being’s ability to exhibit joy, depth of spirit, goodness, or evil, so poetry is not defined by a set of dogmas about how words should be arranged. Rather, it is the emergent quality of how words, time & perception interact with the invisible & imaginary parts of the human psyche that allow a work of poetry to come into being. It is through this imaginary window that the poem finds an entrance into the poet. Some might gasp at this assertion! So be it. A poet can still be an adventurer without claiming to have done anything other than receive. Certainly, there is debate & many-a-diarist would argue that poetry arises entirely out of a need or an urge for the poet to communicate. Could it be though, that even the most dedicated diarist, the most ardent supporter of the confessional, the most engaged identity poet vibrating with essentialist zeal to communicate a message, is essentially conjuring a broadcast from somewhere or some dimension that is less dense, more etheric than our own? Who knows, but it is possible to utilize what some would call arcane technology of mind to apprehend these etheric voices easily & quickly. Think of it as a sort of speed-dial to what Spicer would have called his ‘Martian’ or his ‘Spook.’ Do we today, with the vast resources of the internet & access to the most profound spiritual technologies available, need to fall back on the trial & effort approach of poets like Spicer or older spiritualist collaborators like Yeats? Can we not see beyond the grappling of Indigenous Europeans grappling to find their way back to the original path? Why not look to the poetic maestros of civilizations where the transmission of poetry has not been forgotten? The poems herein presented were received & dictated through meditation. The earliest poems in the collection began as an experiment that proceeded some conversations that I had with CA Conrad in 2018. Conrad was kind enough to serve me water that had sat at the tip of their crystal grid technology. After years of studying Conrad’s Somatic method, I began to play around with some basic rituals. Whereas this wasn’t for me, it was instructional in that, I could begin to use my own skills to speed dial poems. This led me to a series of encounters with distressed desert plants. I would sit near a vegetable life form that had been somehow stressed by its proximity to the city. I would listen closely to my intuition & channel the message of the plant. A whole series of events followed, Raymond, RAMA, Ramona’s house. Kundalini yoga & the Quarantine. Guru Jagat & her lessons on Guru Yoga. RAMA business accelerator, Guru Jagat’s suggestion to use tratak meditation. Face reading. Harijiwan & in the summer of 2021, after being lambasted by Ariana Reines for being too didactic, the poem started to speak directly to me. It was critical & described the process that it had to go through to get me to speak on its behalf. It was a little embarrassing honestly. The poems herein presented are the voice of the poem. I interfered a tad. The text, minus a few edits is a direct channeling of the poem. With the encouragement of teacher Sherwin Bitsui, I put some pressure on its voice; carved away at how windy it tends to be. I have a very verbose poem! When I thought about it, I realized that the poem was a star voice & so I let the words be white, stars, & the page be black, a vacuum. The title, & the approach come from a teaching of my Late yoga teacher Guru Jagat. Everything is a trance. Which one do we want to be in.? I am on a trance mission & this poem is my Sherpa, & I am merely along for the ride.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	American poetry--21st century
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PE English P Language and Literature > PS American literature
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Arts and Letters > English
Date Deposited:	25 May 2023 21:59
Last Modified:	25 May 2024 08:30
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/5904

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