carving and poetry

I always feel a little self-conscious about this blog's title, you know, because it's a little ( a lotta little) cutesy. When I started this blog-- which is the mark of me beginning my journey as a poet (yes I think 'poet' is an action and not an inherent trait; it's a verb not an adjective) I thought that I was 'carving' words; like in wood; like in lovers carving their names in an oak tree. If that were the case, this blog title really would have been embarassing because it wouldn't have said anything true about what poetry is. It wouldn't have said much really.

But now I'm going claim subconscious knowledge as my wild card, and say that I must have known deep somewhere that 'carving' meant more than wood and words. Poetry--I am learning--is about vision into what is impossible. It's about believing in alchemy. And let me tell you something-- neither of those things are either easy or pleasant. In order to truly believe in something impossible, you have to sacrifice something for it. You have to leave something of yourself in it's name, otherwise you could take back your word, and have it go unnoticed. You could slink away, unharmed--nothing at stake. No, believing in the impossible is about investing yourself in a high risk. There are so many things that are risky about poetry: trying to explain or capture or create what cannot be explained, captured, or created/ doing something that your history doesn't understand/ allowing for questions, for shadows, for breath that could take down your house with one whip.

And so, in order to believe in the risk you are taking when you are writing/doing poetry, when you are PAINFULLY morphing into a    p   o   e    t     you have to leave a little of yourself on the altar in order for it to work.

carving poetry isn't about carving words out of anything... it's about carving myself out of me, so that I can believe in what poetry does.  Let it be known to those of you thinking about making this journey too: Each time you go to make poetry, you are carving yourself right out of yourself, until there is nothing left to carve and you are poetry itself.