Friday, April 10, 2009

On Poetry, Self-Pity, and Sympathy: In Response to Dustin Brookshire's Comment on My Last Post

Sympathy versus pity.

Sympathy comes incidentally from the sharing of a poem. It comes naturally. A poet does not/cannot strategize to receive it. Sympathy is kindness. It has nothing to do with love.

One strives for pity. One begs for this unearned kind of love.

For poets self-pity is a public act. A strategic act made of words.

Sympathy simply happens in the mind of the reader. It often isn’t made of words. It’s a mere feeling.

Self-pity is not a bad thing. It is not necessarily a monotone whine. It can be a beautifully crafted song. As in the case of Schuyler’s poems.

Self-pity more often than not is honest. It often is an honest and open indulgence. Even if ultimately unattractive.

Schuyler’s words confess a desire for pity. Self-referentially, they admit their own manipulative nature. Have I made it clear why I would love a poem entitled “Self-Pity is a Kind of Lying, Too”? Here is the poem in its entirety:

It’s
snowing defective
vision days and
X-
mas is coming, like
a plow. And in the
meat the snow. Strange.
It all reminds me
of an old lady I
once saw shivering
naked beside a black
polluted stream. You
felt terrible-but
the train didn’t
stop-so. And the
white which is
some other color or
its absence-it
spins on itself
and so do the Who
at Leeds I’m playing
to drown the carols
blatting from the
Presbyterian church
steeple which is
the same as fight-
ing fire with oil.
Naked people-old,
cold-one day we’ll
just have snow
to wear too.

What I find alluring about this poem (other than the use of the verb “blatting”) is the title “Self-Pity is a Kind of Lying Too.” Which is an admission of the artifice of his own self-pitying words. At the same, notice he says “a kind of lying.” The striving to express his own self-pity (and by extension the poem) is of "a kind." Not actual and complete phoniness.

I see that title as an admission that contorting the autobiographical narrative is OK. If it’s in service of something. Like a poem. A wonderful poem.

Here that something larger is also a need for comfort. In a world where religion can offer us nothing. Through a single line break, he reduces the whole Presbyterian church to a mere steeple. Even the religious holiday of Christmas is destroyed through enjambment: a loud, capitalized X followed by the lonely, useless “-mas.” That X cancels out religion.

The self-pity inherent in these declarations (how sad it is religion fails to be of use) leave him with nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except the benignly comic fact that we’re all doomed: “one day we’ll/ just have snow/to wear too.”

His self-pity transforms into a minimally consoling, collective misery. Who can resist that?

5 comments:

  1. "Self-pity-as-trope" seems to undermine, in a good way, self-pity. Self-pity seems so harmless and completely without art. The abyss that is self-refraction has no way to stop. As as you say, not even the synecdoche of the steeple can thwart the slide. But the control at the end makes something "useful" out of the pity--collective misery is useful right? In the Marxist sense?

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  2. Just to be clear my comments are not referring to sympathy/pity in Schuyler’s work-- I'm commenting in general.

    Sympathy comes incidentally from the sharing of a poem. It comes naturally. A poet does not/cannot strategize to receive it. Sympathy is kindness. It has nothing to do with love. Steve, I disagree with this statement to an extent. I think sympathy can come naturally; however, I also think it can be strategized. And, I definitely don't think sympathy is kindness-- just because someone might feel inclination to think alike another does not make the sympathized kind. And, I'll agree that sympathy is not love.


    For poets self-pity is a public act. A strategic act made of words.

    Sympathy simply happens in the mind of the reader. It often isn’t made of words. It’s a mere feeling.
    I know, for myself, that I sometimes write about the difficulty of being and having hardcore Baptist family. Some of the things I write about were harsh experiences for me; however, I am not writing to gain pity-- I want sympathy. I want the reader to feel like he was in shoes. I have the hope-- yes maybe it ia huge one-- that maybe this experience, this reader will think about the treatment of others-- not just gay people but anyone he/she might treat differently becuase his/her moral/value/etc system is different and labels certain people wrong/outcast/etc. (Hopefully, that makes sense.) BUT-- if you say sympathy is not made of words, then you must (at least) believe the words are the road to sympathy's house.

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  3. Dustin, you want empathy not sympathy. Two different things in my mind, although often confused.

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  4. CK-- I have an understanding of the two words. But one of the definitions of sympathy is to "the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another." This is what I was talking about; however, empathy is very fitting as well.

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  5. Hi Dustin,

    I always try to post later, so I don't cut off anyone's comments. I am jealous that you know what your poetic project is. Knowing that causes one to strive to write poems. After my book was released, I found myself at a complete loss. Trying to create poetry for no reason. I forgot what my goals were. Or maybe I didn't have any anymore. I have the makings of a second book, but won't send it out any longer, until I realize if it's worthy of any readers. I'm depressed and lost about this situation I'm in.

    That's one of many reasons I'm writing this blog. I want to analyze queer poets and through those critical interrogations try to find a reason to write poems again, and send my second book out.

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