Saving this post. Kate is truly one of the most prolific metrical poets I have ever encountered! It's wonderful to read her thoughts on language and poetry.
A lot of the Latinate words in English are the abstracted words. So they were used in the church, they were used in law, they were used in institutions, but they weren't used by the common people. So the words that often touch us in a very physical way are from the Anglo Saxon. They could be also from the Norman, French or the aristocracy when they were touched by their language. Or they could be from the Norse or Danish, as they were in the north of England where I grew up. So I think it's often to do with the root, daily use of the word. Shakespeare had this brilliant ability to layer word upon word, often using the Latinate at the end, the Latinate derivations after he'd set the physical sense of the word in your mind. - David Whyte
You’ve given me so much to think on, Kate! Especially this: “I don’t need poetry to be easy; sometimes the simplest poems are incredibly expansive. But it cannot lock itself away in the writer’s idiosyncratic language and expect me to love it. Mere self-expression, without references to something we can share, does not create hospitable poetry.”
I think a truly hospitable poem is able to be clearly written by the poet—with specificity, even about themselves—in a way that does not exclude the reader but invites them into something deeper, as you said. I don’t think self-expression is bad in poetry, as long as it invites the reader into an experience that they can participate in even when foreign to them (as you said)!! Such great thoughts!!
I had a wonderful professor in college and grad school who said that in writing a paper, the writer needs to lead the reader through the argument. He was talking about essays in an English class, but I think it also applies to poetry (and much of everything else). Of course we don’t want to talk down to the reader, or over-explain, but we need to look for ways to lead the reader into and through our writing, rather than simply expecting them to make leaps and land when we did. As with so many things, it can be difficult to strike the right balance between guiding and oversimplifying, but it’s what we should aim for, in my opinion. So we can write self-expressive pieces, but we remember that we are writing to strangers, and if they are to identify with our experience, we have to write it clearly and even draw things out for the reader where necessary. It’s especially hard in poetry to keep that from being pedantic, but it’s worth doing. It’s similar, I think, to that balance between the specific and the universal that good poems strike. Very difficult, but so worthwhile when it happens.
As Mr. Pope called for: “What’s often thought but ne’er so well expressed.” I run into that early enough, I am on board for puzzling out and (one hopes) eventually understanding more challenging passages.
I imagine you have encountered William Dunbar. Late Middle English mixed with Scott and Latinate language. It thunders. “Hale stern in superne/Hale in eterne.”
These poems, and your interpretation of them, are a delight, and matched perfectly with the scent of rain on dry earth wafting through my open window. I feel uplifted.
Marvelous, Kate! I too have a soft spot for middle English, though it's been a while. Thank you for sharing these poems. Also: "Because that’s what hospitable poetry is: truly human poetry that lets us see each other at the same time it lets us see ourselves." I totally agree, but also I think we could apply this to any art. I'm definitely thinking on how I can make my own work "hospital" using this value.
Saving this post. Kate is truly one of the most prolific metrical poets I have ever encountered! It's wonderful to read her thoughts on language and poetry.
A lot of the Latinate words in English are the abstracted words. So they were used in the church, they were used in law, they were used in institutions, but they weren't used by the common people. So the words that often touch us in a very physical way are from the Anglo Saxon. They could be also from the Norman, French or the aristocracy when they were touched by their language. Or they could be from the Norse or Danish, as they were in the north of England where I grew up. So I think it's often to do with the root, daily use of the word. Shakespeare had this brilliant ability to layer word upon word, often using the Latinate at the end, the Latinate derivations after he'd set the physical sense of the word in your mind. - David Whyte
You’ve given me so much to think on, Kate! Especially this: “I don’t need poetry to be easy; sometimes the simplest poems are incredibly expansive. But it cannot lock itself away in the writer’s idiosyncratic language and expect me to love it. Mere self-expression, without references to something we can share, does not create hospitable poetry.”
I think a truly hospitable poem is able to be clearly written by the poet—with specificity, even about themselves—in a way that does not exclude the reader but invites them into something deeper, as you said. I don’t think self-expression is bad in poetry, as long as it invites the reader into an experience that they can participate in even when foreign to them (as you said)!! Such great thoughts!!
Yes! Self-expression is not a bad thing!
I had a wonderful professor in college and grad school who said that in writing a paper, the writer needs to lead the reader through the argument. He was talking about essays in an English class, but I think it also applies to poetry (and much of everything else). Of course we don’t want to talk down to the reader, or over-explain, but we need to look for ways to lead the reader into and through our writing, rather than simply expecting them to make leaps and land when we did. As with so many things, it can be difficult to strike the right balance between guiding and oversimplifying, but it’s what we should aim for, in my opinion. So we can write self-expressive pieces, but we remember that we are writing to strangers, and if they are to identify with our experience, we have to write it clearly and even draw things out for the reader where necessary. It’s especially hard in poetry to keep that from being pedantic, but it’s worth doing. It’s similar, I think, to that balance between the specific and the universal that good poems strike. Very difficult, but so worthwhile when it happens.
As Mr. Pope called for: “What’s often thought but ne’er so well expressed.” I run into that early enough, I am on board for puzzling out and (one hopes) eventually understanding more challenging passages.
I imagine you have encountered William Dunbar. Late Middle English mixed with Scott and Latinate language. It thunders. “Hale stern in superne/Hale in eterne.”
Jesu, ic hadde a luvely thyme yreading Þat post! Gramercie be vnto thee.
Thank you Kate and Abigail! Such a lovely and thoughtful read
Love your discussion around navigating middle English! It can be so worth it... Some of my favorite finds in Spenser:
--A goddess finds an orphan baby and noursels him up to manhood
-- a degenerate soul like a dongheap
-- a monster who is sib to some other monster
There's so many more funny words that I can't remember... ❤️
These poems, and your interpretation of them, are a delight, and matched perfectly with the scent of rain on dry earth wafting through my open window. I feel uplifted.
Thank you so much, and thank you for reading!
Marvelous, Kate! I too have a soft spot for middle English, though it's been a while. Thank you for sharing these poems. Also: "Because that’s what hospitable poetry is: truly human poetry that lets us see each other at the same time it lets us see ourselves." I totally agree, but also I think we could apply this to any art. I'm definitely thinking on how I can make my own work "hospital" using this value.
Yes! I agree it can apply to any art. And I don't think that excludes abstraction, either. Even abstract art can be hospitable.