Monday, 22 August 2022

  

 

 

MY PHILOSOPHY OF POETRY

LITTERATURE STREET

 

DONT STOP ME IF YOU HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE!

 In the words of Nietzsche turning muck to gold


Poetry for me is a way of life, it touched my very being

for my degreeI wrote how Patrick 

Kavanagh and Raymond  Carver showed me 

the way to the philosophy of poetry.


When I was a young boy I lived in Hacksballscross

just a mile from Kavanagh's b irthplace Inniskeen

the townland of Mucker, meaning friend in Irish.

 

Carver and Kavanagh were miles apart and time-

lines apart. I was the catalyst doing my degree

at the poet's house in Donegal, I sent them three

poems and was asked to go on a 2 week

poetry retreat.

 

I mucked in so well in Portmuck, all the muck-

mucker under the tabletop of Muckish mountain. 

All the pagan place names point to me as a poet 

who wrote a poem called:

Pagan Poet

One sylabble
Appears
On the page
The word
Sun.

 

The clarity
Of the new
Day forms
The seed
Of a poem.

 

The soft sway
Of language
Breezes across
The fertile earth.

 



The poetry of Kavanagh was everywhere in Hack-

ballscross his poetry seeped into my blood, 

when my teacher read his poetry I was hypnotised 

into a trace.

 In the words of Nietzsche turning muck to gold

The teacher went out to see my parents

to persuade them for me to stay on but

I hated school and wanted to stand on

my own two feet get away from my

fathers ogre like home rule regime.

 


 

I went to work in Dublin and London started

reading up on poetry critique, creative writing.

I was reading all the classics like Yeats, Pound,

Eliot etc, I was going going right over my head.

I signed up for a creative writing further education

class at the local tech. I took with me a list

 A list of contemporary writer like the beat poets,

Plath, Sexton and Lowell’s life studies.

 

The tutor said I had to read Dante, Virgil, Shakespeare etc,

I walked out the door went to library Set up a desk

with the door of the box room for typewriter and books.

He told his wife he would work no more as he wanted

to be a writer said it might take two years to be published,

it took six.

 

A friend called him being the only person who spoke of literature

he lent him ‘Fires’ by Raymond Carver, he said I would get so much

from this writer, the blurb on the back said trailer park literature.

Sparked my attention an alco poet without the beer soaked pages

of hungover blues.

 

For ten years he wrote and rewrote and rewrote, read and reread

Carvers poetry Salmon Rushdie who said read every thing carver wrote

he was a great writer so I do.ne what I was told. He had his first  

poem a bastard life in an athology, he went to the library, told them

about his publication. And set up a creative writing class that began

with Carvers magic words, his oness as the Buddists say.

 

When his friend left he flicked through the book stopped at.

A poem for Karl Walenda aerial supreme he felt he was on

The sky walk tight rope holdig Carvers hand, was as if the poems

Were written for him,his language He was being published in small

press poetry mags. Then a chap book an intro with four other

writers. He went to work for the poets house, everything seemed

so right, Jimmy Janice simmons offered him a scholarship.

He levitated all the way from Donegal-

to Craigavon.

 

Out bullets and bombs while I blattered out peace pomes.

I worked for an arts center setting up workshops for adults

and children in schools and youth centres. I was so centred

on these workshops that it took over my life, without being

clocked In or out part fulltime. I think there for I am.

 

My first collection ‘Splint’ was published on the blurb

on the back said. Imbued by the poetry

Of Raymond Carver, to be mentioned on in the same

sentence with Raymond Carver. This is A paragraph of wonder

that holds bombs and bullets, imbued in peace of wonder. I went all

Around the world Hungary, Germany, Dublin, Amsterdam Belfast

even produced a C.D. with a folk singer friend of mine Rodney Cordner

we set up a series of workshops based on the C.D. Violets.

An anagram of lost lives. We toured all over Europe

and Ireland with Ann Gallaghers seeds of hope

with talks on the peace process on my return home

I took a massive stroke and spent

A year in foster green, a rehab hospital losing

/all my long term memory

paralyzed down my right. Wheelchair bound I hope that this is true?HERE SAY

 

Schopehauer,  Neitzsche, Camus Cioran and alan watts poets of philosophy, a pessimistic veiew

Of wonder. Religion censored their view even Greek mythology and the stoics telling us about

Keats and Shakespeare negative capability. The internet has blown away the bullshit of religion

And negative capability is the true sense of humanity. Darkness within darkness has given me

A sense of belonging a realisation of hope within loss all those crusades and barbarism in the name

Of religion were futile. At long last have we come to the truth of humanity all we need now is for

All you traditional numskulls realise that we can only get peace by giving peace, stop this macho

revenge avenge in you a sense of humanity. We are not out of the dark woods yet, these so called

Men of the cloth are evildoers its up to us to show them that there is another way through dialogue.

I have been on seminars with people like desmond tutu Michael stone through anne Gallaghers

seeds of hope, created a C.D. with my friend Rodney Cordner called violets anagram of lost lives

A tribute to that great book that pays homage to the people who paid the price for the peace we

Have today catholics, potestants, police,army all in one book together. I have been privileged to

Be around people like the sands family and friends, I really have the honour to be around that

Aroma of peace, we cant let this peace slid away like molten lava and evolve aother black hill

Of hatred. At the start of this peace on peace I was askig myslf what right have I a street kid

With a basic education but then I realised that peace gives me every right to write this.

Please please please don’t let it slip away. In 2005 I took a stroke that almost killed me, iknow

I don’t have the mind capacity to teach creative writing as I have lost my long term memory but

You can remind me in a short term. Through this blog that acts as a minds eye as I suffer from

Aphantasia, the stroke has left me paralyzed down one side of my body ill never walk I know

All forty five years of memory are locked within my only way to live is to live in me,my only way

To find substance is in mei just hope that all this is true, I know it happened but I don’t have any

Hologram projection, I have no way of knowing. My life is hear say. I know I keep repeating this

Over and over for years but this is all I have im stuck to the momet of peace, I want to move but

I cant its like a brick wall you cant get over uder or around, I hope one day to sledge my way through

Until then I will mumble my way. For years I have writ the same theme in a different format.  Death

Is the only answer when will you righteous people ever understand that life goes on in death,

memory is reincarnation we cat move on until euthanasia is a common practise please let me die

with dignity and not to wake again crying in a an e ward please stop this. We have known through

aincient Indian hindiu sculptor the scientific way but religion has blocked our human intelligence

its as if we have been labotomised even the south American Indians knew of the old ways long

before religion uncivilised them. Plant life has beenknown as remedies long before science was

scorned upon but it was the way, religion has a lot to answer for, the philosopher poets knew

open the migration routes the global world belongs to every one, trust. 

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