American poet Denise Levertov
Writing in the Dark
It’s not difficult.
Anyway, it’s necessary.
Wait till morning, and you’ll forget.
And who knows if morning will come.
Fumble for the light,
And you’ll be
Stark awake, but the vision
Will be fading, slipping
Out of reach.
You must have paper at hand,
A felt-tip pen, ballpoints don’t always flow,
Pencil points tend to break. There’s nothing
Shameful in that much prudence: those are our tools.
Never mind about crossing your t’s, dotting your I’s –
But take care not to cover
One word with the next. Practice will reveal
How one hand instinctively comes to the aid of the other
To keep each line
Clear of the next.
Keep writing in the dark:
A record of the night, or
Words that pulled you from the depths of unknowing,
Words that flew through your mind, strange birds
Crying their urgency with human voices,
Or opened
As flowers of a tree that blooms
Only once in a lifetime:
Words that may have the power
To make the sun rise again.
Denise Leveretov from Collected Poems, New Directions, 2013
A dream woke me this morning here in Kardamyli, Greece. It was early for me: 5:30. And I remembered the poem, Writing in the Dark, by Denise Levertov. The poem that stands out for me as the one that said wake up, take your writing seriously when I began to write again in the early 2000’s. The poem that said believe this: Words that may have the power / To make the sun rise again.
And its so appropriate I remembered Levertov’s poem. Because today, back home in Canada (October 24th) was her birthday in 1923. Considered one of the important English-speaking poets of her time she was a poet of astonishing range (from quiet and mysterious devotional poems to poems of protest and other social commentary).
Levertov was deeply influenced by William Carlos Williams and they had a wonderful correspondence by letters for many years which has been published. She was born in the U.K. but moved to the U.S.in 1948 where she lived for the rest of her life. She died in Seattle in 1997.
Here is what Mary Oliver says about her: Levertov was musical, fierce, absolute in her honesty and for us, her public, as indispensable as any modern poet. To young writers asking for direction Denise Levertov’s name comes to my tongue, always, among the very first of our important forbearers., Her work was, and is, a brave gift to us all.
And for the gift of Levertov’s poem I am ever grateful for Susan Wooldridge’s book Poemcrazy where I found the Levertov poem on page 185! It was Poemcrazy that inspired me to begin leading poetry writing groups even as I was beginning my own road to becoming a poet. It was how, in teaching, I began to teach myself. And then in 2004 I began taking retreats with master poets, especially Patrick Lane!
But back to Levertov’s poem. What a great reminder. Especially these lines:
Keep writing in the dark:
A record of the night, or
Words that pulled you from the depths of unknowing,
Words that flew through your mind, strange birds
Crying their urgency with human voices,
Or opened
As flowers of a tree that blooms
Only once in a lifetime:
Words that may have the power
To make the sun rise again.
And I so like the suggestion in the poem that we must write out of a dark that might not be night alone. I was feeling that dark a few days ago. The usual mind-clatter about not having the poetic chops anymore. Then I began a postcard to a dear poet friend and began a poem having no idea what to say. But the near-full moon must have been talking to me because I had just read a poem by Jack Gilbert and so haltingly line by line this poem happened, and my inner darkness lifted:
Lunar
What was the poet thinking
when he wrote: Moon is horses
in the tempered dark? Tonight,
moon is Mallory on Everest
before he fell. Tonight,
moon is nothing
more than night’s cold glare,
no canter or gallop
inside it. Tonight,
moon is not
earth’s shy concubine. She’s
flagrant, almost full-
bodied enough to bed
but not tonight, tonight
the moon’s a prayer I forgot
to pray. Desolation
painted over with light.
Thank you Denise for being with me at the start of this journey. Not as a young poet then as Oliver talks about but young in the way of being a poet and so I am so grateful that she was there as a guide and inspiration.
One Comment
Glad to to be able to get another blog post in during October.