Heroes Not Zombies

I think poets have not only the keenest powers of observation but their words illuminate. The world looks different after reading poetry. I’m not referring to particular passages which have changed my perception or understanding of particular places or experiences. I’m referring to, well, what would you call it? The poetic stance? The poetic viewpoint? The poetic way of living maybe……

When I was a teenager (a LONG time ago) I bought a little book by the poet Stephen Spender. It was called “Life And the Poet”. It was a small paperback with a darkly yellowed cover. It was published in 1942 apparently. I’m sure I must have it somewhere but I can’t lay my hands on it right now and it’s almost 40 years since I opened it and read any of it. But I seem to remember two things he said. One was that he said poets should be like visitors from another planet. It was his way of saying a poet should approach the world with wonder and amazement (a bit like those French philosophers I read recently). I liked that a lot. It stuck. And he also said, I think (bare with me, this memory is a long way off!), that poetry taught us how to “make life anew” and that was a reason to live. That stuck too. (or maybe I’ve invented that for myself after all these years……I’ll need to find my old copy, or another one, and read it again)

I paid a visit recently to the lovely Watermill Bookshop in Aberfeldy

As I browsed the shelves my eye was caught by a book entitled “Findings” by Kathleen Jamie (ISBN 978-0-954-22174-4). Never heard of the book before, and I’d never heard of the author either, but the back cover described her as an “award winning poet” who has an “eye and an ease with the nature and landscapes of Scotland”. I opened the book and the paper under my fingers made me stop and wonder. It felt lovely. A soft roughness if you can imagine such a thing. Immediately it felt natural, and special, and thrillingly sensuous. This feels like a lovely book, I thought. Now that doesn’t happen often. I can enjoy the weight, the feel, the scent of a real book (no, computers will never replace the book), but I can’t remember when I ever before picked up an unknown book like this and felt transfixed. It caught me. Physically. So I sat down in one of the many comfy, leather armchairs and I started to read. Did I have any doubts? From the moment I held it in my hand, did I have any sense that I’d put it back on the shelf? I don’t think so. I think I knew I’d relish, yes, that’s the right word, relish this book. I bought it of course.

It’s not a book of poetry, but a book of essays – a poet’s living.

Some of the subjects she writes about are familiar to me. Orkney, salmon ladders, prehistoric stone markings, the Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh and the Edinburgh skyline. But even the familiar seemed brand new in her eyes, in her words. She’s a keen observer of nature, especially birds, and in the essay entitled, “Peregrines, Ospreys, Cranes” she writes this…..

This is what I want to learn: to notice, but not to analyse. To still the part of the brain that’s yammering, “My God, what’s that? A stork, a crane, an ibis? – don’t be silly, its just a weird heron”. Sometimes we have to hush the frantic inner voice that says “Don’t be stupid” and learn again to look, to listen. You can do the organising and redrafting, the diagnosing and identifying later, but right now, just be open to it, see how it’s tilting nervously into the wind, try to see the colour, the unchancy shape – hold it in your head, bring it home intact.

That’s what I want to learn too – to notice, to look, to listen, without processing it all, but taking the experiences home and turning them over later. My camera helps me do that, but Kathleen Jamie’s words inspire me to write more down, to write it down as soon as possible……not the analysis, the experience, the perception, the observation. To relish the “emerveillement” of living.