When Reading Poetry...
By: Jean Klein
Tagore said that the aim of a true work of art is to give a form to what escapes definition. Then the viewer will no longer be seduced by the material used nor even by the anecdotal content; instead he will be immediately plunged into a non-state which is the aesthetic experience.
—Jean Klein
When reading poetry we don’t look for agreement or disagreement, the critical mind is suspended in order to let the impact of the poem make itself felt. When we read poetry, we are poets.
We remain passively alert, letting the words be active, listening to how they echo on every level, how they sound, how they move in us, how we are moved by them. We wait attentively, without conclusion, for the poem to find us.
This alert openness to all the resonances of the psychosomatic structure is vital to the truth-seeker. Like the poet, the truth-seeker lets go of his personality so that he is open to thoughts, feelings and reactions.
Like the poet, the truth-seeker welcomes these as gifts, as pointers in the exploration. Only in this openness can the silence in the words come home to us, for openness is the “I am,” our real nature.
The words are merely a catalyst to the real formulation which takes place in the reader.
You can find this passage in Jean Klein’s profound little book — I Am
"The words are merely a catalyst to the real formulation which takes place in the reader." So beautiful, and so true. Jean Klein was not only one of the best teachers of real spirituality in the nondual tradition, but also one of the best commentators on art and literature. His perspective and words on our real nature, and on awakening, were inseparable from his perspective on artistic and creative practices and productions. And he was of course himself a musicologist and an accomplished musician. I find this combination of qualities to be utterly winsome.
A similar case is found in Rupert Spira, who was one of the most widely renowned modern ceramicists before moving into full-time spiritual teaching. His art and his teaching both flow from the same source and understanding, and mutually illuminate each other. Just yesterday, btw, he released a short video titled "Poetry: Expressing the Inexpressible," that might be of interest. It shows him in private conversation with a Chinese poet who asks for some advice regarding his attempts to translate one of Rupert's poems into Chinese. Rupert says things like this: "A poem is much more than just the meaning of the words. Don’t think of my version as something static. It's fluid, and therefore the translation should also be fluid. In your translation, you are really trying to do the same as I was in the original: to express the inexpressible....If you feel that in order honor the incantatory aspect of the poem, that you have to depart from the original language, the original form, the original structure, the original order of verses, then feel free to do so." https://youtu.be/CVEMHXpp9rk?si=bEm0nN_DzYz0Y0j9
Thank you! This post struck a nerve within me of how the reader interacts with the words of a poem. Fifty-six years ago sitting in my high school English class, I had a teacher who was as narrow minded as they come. He asked for our interpretation of a Robert Frost poem. When he called on me, I gave him an answer how I interpreted the meaning to be. Without any question to why I thought what I said, he abruptly cut me off to tell me I was further from the truth than anyone could possibly be. I replied by telling him that poetry was meant to invoke different perspectives to many people. He then began to admonish me in front of the class after turning to the notes for teachers at the back of his manual, and read what Frost's real interpretation of the poem was, written by another academic. One other time, for an assignment, we had to write a poem expressing an inner pain we felt. I did. It was about rape. He said it was garbage. It went something like this:
My never forgotten lover,
Broken by that four letter word f-u-c-k.
The sun rose, when it set, my world turned black
And was left no day.
Words upon words, I lay on once more
Promises of a life all gone with the morn
When that day arrived, a boy came with promises in poem,
He was wild with rage, crazy and scorned.
Telling me of his world where I will not mourn.
The boy made me a woman, the boy killed my life
Flying in mid-air he slashed my soul with his knife.
Crude I know, I was 17, but this teacher's words and actions almost completely destroyed my ability to ever write again. ✍️
I'm glad to have found platforms such as yours where people are not admonished to express their inner selves.