On Sincerity and Inspiration

I wrote the same poem three time today. Or rather, to my annoyance, I did not write the same poem three times today. The initial poem (whether it is the best I cannot say, but it will serve as an ideal for the rest of the process) was lost in the obscure workings of an inexplicably failed upload; the second iteration, composed immediately after in a vain attempt to recover the first, was lost to a sudden crash of a program; the third, a memorial reconstruction of the first two following closely on their heels, appears for now to have succeeded in that it may perhaps pass on beyond its initial composition in the memory of man as assisted by computer.

It almost goes without saying in the context of this blog that these were sonnets. The rhyme scheme (in this case ABBACDDCEFFEGG) was an undoubted aid to memory, as was the meter (iambic pentameter). Yet I could fundamentally feel the sonnet shifting as I attempted to rewrite it from immediate memory. Some of these changes were no doubt improvements that I should rather have preferred to retain in the poem; most were likely neutral; some few may have impaired it. Yet unquestionably and perhaps unreasonably I was annoyed. I wanted that first sonnet, and I wanted to make any changes deliberately and with due consideration, not by the force of a faulty memory. But most of all I wanted my authentic reaction to the stimuli that produced the sonnet, and so I thought its loss might be an excellent reason to discuss, or at least begin discussion of, two topics I have been looking forward to treating here: sincerity and inspiration.

To treat them in the reverse order just mentioned: the inspiration for a sonnet can, of course, come from anywhere. Anything associated with any of the common themes of poetry - or anything not associated with those themes - can serve as an inspiration for a poem. Young love, the flowers that bloom in the spring (tra-la), and death, but also garbage collection, an odd crack in the sidewalk, and a lightbulb can be inspirations for poetry. But that's not particularly useful to hear is it? It's practically a commonplace. What's more interesting, at least to me, is what to do when inspiration does strike, whatever it happens to be triggered by, and the relationship between that inspiration and the final poem-product (or at least the initial poem-product; editing is an issue for another day).

For the former, I am a great proponent of writing right then as the moment strikes. This may be because I used to try to bottle up the feeling and express it later, and failed; you may find a different process better for you. But I believe that attempting at least some initial expression of poetry as soon as the inspiration comes tends to produce a result that is substantially different from doing so in later repose (whether better or worse is almost beside the point; after all, you can recollect at leisure, well, at your leisure, and having written initially should never stop you from doing so). The quicksilver nature of that instant expression is unretrievable, and therefore, even if only therefore, worth preserving. The immediate turn to poetry also strengthens, in my opinion, the poetical instinct: you are more likely to find inspiration the more you react to the inspiration you already find.

The relationship between the poem and its inspiration is complex, and I will only scratch the surface here. For me, a poem is in some way intended to crystallize the feelings that inspired it, to take a moment, real or imagined, and preserve it for others, not to marvel at, but to experience or re-experience in the reading of the poem. Whether that moment and those feelings come from a grand high sense of purpose or a fleeting glance at something interesting on a wall is hardly material to this process, although not every moment is one I would prefer to reproduce. The key is an attempt to make subjective experience communicable, to take a thought, a feeling, or even an action and translate it into a form someone else can take and retranslate back into their own life. That's a high aim, and a hard one to meet - and it is part of why I value both the instant flash of inspiration as it turns into poetry and the later recollection in repose; without both forms it can be very difficult to properly digest and present one's own subjective experience. It is for this reason that I was so unhappy about failing to find the original words, because I was losing the link to my initial subjective experience even as I was trying to recast the poem out of memory, because my focus was turning on the poem rather than on the moment I was attempting to capture itself.

Sincerity is an even more vexed topic than inspiration. To what extent should poetry truly mirror life? To what extent should it be a faithful record of truly felt emotion or truly experienced experience? To what extent is it fiction? To what extent is it the imaginative extension of the poet into feelings he or she may or may not have experienced in life and filters through a process of invention (ie fiction again)? I myself have wavered back and forth on this. Clearly, what I said above about crystallizing experience has a strong tinge of the belief that poetry should be an honest reflection of genuinely felt emotion. But I also believe it is possible to attempt to solidify and translate emotions one only imagines; harder, but possible. Somewhat easier is the presentation of an emotion that has been genuinely held in circumstances different from the one in which it was held; emotion redirected is still emotion, and partakes of the same register of human experience. Thus the strong association between sincerity and my views on the process of translating inspiration into poetry is not airtight; and I definitely believe that there is a place for what I would hesitate to call "insincerity," and should perhaps rather call invention or fiction. There have most certainly been times in my life when reading my poetry would have directly followed my emotional state as surely as that of the most stereotypical angsty teenager ever; but there have equally been times when I wrote completely from imagination, and everywhere in between on the spectrum. What is crucial regarding sincerity for me is that the poem, in the moment it is created, should feel sincere to the poet - the emotions, thoughts, and experiences being communicated may be altered, or invented, or even in the original, but they should be communicated in such a way as to communicate how they are making the poet feel in the moment of creation of the poem. This I find solves the crisis, because even the altered or invented emotions can only be said to have been actually altered or invented if they are affecting the poet in the moment of creation. For example, I may not feel the sadness I am attempting to convey; but thinking of the sadness should be invoking a sympathetic response of sadness within me that I can then place into the poem. If my imagination is not strong enough to conjure up the feelings within my breast that I am attempting to convey, then the poem will fall flat. Thus sincerity comes not in its relation to how the poet might feel at a moment of not writing poetry - hence fiction is not only acceptable but standard - but in its relation to how the poet feels in the moment of writing, a moment in which even invented feelings should be making their impact via the keen edge of imagination. Again, this is why I wished for the first poem that I tried to write, as the experience it was intended to convey was slipping away due to my focus on the recovery of the poem rather than the primary experience itself.

Poetry relies on a focus outside of the poem itself, both for inspiration and for the sincere expression of emotion and experience. In losing the first poem, I lost those points as well, and it became difficult to recreate the poem on its own terms. That is the cause of annoyance - not only the loss of the first poem, but the loss of its connection to the initially sincere expression of inspiration.