tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post2772449947489263488..comments2024-01-23T03:58:02.422-08:00Comments on oriana-poetry: EARTHLY PARADISEUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-23245624488448704422012-07-06T12:23:14.688-07:002012-07-06T12:23:14.688-07:00A late addendum: it occurred to me that if I happe...A late addendum: it occurred to me that if I happened to have a strong belief in some heavenly paradise (Christian notion of heaven is dreadfully vague and unattractive -- Dickinson commented on that)-- if I had formed a notion of an attractive afterlife in any form -- I would have had no motivation to decide not to be depressed. I would have seen nothing wrong with self-loathing. I'd just wait to die, basically, holding to the Catholic belief that the more you suffer here on earth, the shorter your time in Purgatory. <br /><br />It's because I knew (not just believed, but KNEW on the deep intuitive level) that this is it, "there ain't no more," and you either make something of your life or else you've missed your one and only opportunity to contribute something positive to others and to enjoy the feast of life, it's because I knew that it's "now or never," or, as Rilke put it in the Elegies, "just once and no more -- but to have been here, even once, how magnificent!" -- that I finally became motivated to quit being depressed. Mortality did it. When it became real enough, depression became absurd and simply not an option. I didn't want to waste what little time was left (and we never know how little that may be; people notoriously overestimate their life expectancy).orianahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04209366167129773052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-29433919364228043742012-02-28T19:59:12.585-08:002012-02-28T19:59:12.585-08:00I know what you mean Oriana. Though if a writer&#...I know what you mean Oriana. Though if a writer's desire to live is mitigated by his lust for fame he deserves to die (joke). <br /><br />My sense of the afterlife may be different than yours but in my mind, Rilke is still very much alive. I love his French poems especially and yes the New Poems are exquisite. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of him...L.P. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12147709199917521165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-55232493448996520052012-02-28T16:23:10.767-08:002012-02-28T16:23:10.767-08:00Yes. But it is also important to me to know that h...Yes. But it is also important to me to know that he didn't want to die. It reminds of a story I once read, about a great Eastern sage dying, the disciples leaning close to hear his last words. And he says, "I don't want to die." So human. <br /><br />I am glad that we aren't given the bargain, somewhat like the two destinies of Achilles: if you die now, people will read your work even centuries from now. Or you can choose posthumous obscurity, but you'll get to live to 110, healthy and sharp-minded, enjoying those thousands of sunsets to come. And if 200 years were offered, OMG, who could resist it . . . But we don't make such choices, and besides, Rilke did have a fabulous stretch there at midlife, crowned with the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus. Though again, who knows, he may come to be best appreciated for the New Poems -- in some ways his most startling and modern work.orianahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04209366167129773052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-55060724727116060572012-02-27T22:20:19.057-08:002012-02-27T22:20:19.057-08:00Rilke will be read in 100 years, in tens of thousa...Rilke will be read in 100 years, in tens of thousands of years if our planet survives. In this way there is no death no better riches for Rilke.L.P. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12147709199917521165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-15284929930236293812012-02-25T19:07:47.620-08:002012-02-25T19:07:47.620-08:00I think he had a profound hunger for some kind of ...I think he had a profound hunger for some kind of spiritual world, and was torn between that longing and his growing love for the earth and THIS life. He is regarded as the great poet of death. And indeed poems like The Swan imply that real life begins only after death, when we can be regal like a swan in water rather than a swan waddling awkwardly on land. I used to be more fond of Rilke in the past . . . But yes, he was evolving toward a magnificent love of life -- possibly because his life was getting easier and happier, as often happens as we grow older and richer (including financially, let's face it). Then the disaster of leukemia . . . He hated it, he discovered that he hated death -- because it would be of no use, i.e. he wouldn't be able to write about it.orianahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04209366167129773052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-72772751015048517142012-02-24T22:11:06.810-08:002012-02-24T22:11:06.810-08:00Thanks for your wonderful response Oriana. When I...Thanks for your wonderful response Oriana. When I said Rilke "believed." I actually meant in himself. Not in Christianity. He was, as you say, ever evolving and if he distanced himself from the Book of Hours the poems (many of them) can be viewed in a non-denominational context. I have always considered them as love poems from spirit to spirit despite their sometimes specific address to a Christian god. <br /><br />I am not a Rilke expert, just a devotee and grateful for those with whom I can exchange this great love.L.P. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12147709199917521165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-26489079303694123432012-02-24T12:18:06.269-08:002012-02-24T12:18:06.269-08:00Thank you, Lois. I hope that others feel that way ...Thank you, Lois. I hope that others feel that way too -- that there is some gem in each blog that happens to fit their needs. Some people are starved for intellectual and aesthetic stimulation. I hope I provide some nourishment for them. That's my most important giving. <br /><br />Rilke's beliefs kept evolving. He particularly wanted to distance himself from the Book of Hours, twenty years later saying that he was not the same poet as the one who wrote that collection. In the Duino Elegies he addresses the Earth (Erde, du Liebe) as the Beloved. He also posits Orpheus as the personification of poetry. Like recently Szymborska, he requested that his burial service be secular, not conducted by a priest. And yet there is no question that Catholicism had a huge imprint on him. It repelled him, but, in a changed and personalized form, kept turning up in his poems. (Note his pathetic insistence that the angels in the Duino Elegies were more Islamic.) He didn't want the negative stuff that comes with Catholicism -- the S&M, rejection of the body and of reason, absurd dogma, eternal hell-fire damnation, blood sacrifice, the idea that real life begins only after death -- the whole medieval stench, you could say, the terrorism and intimidation, the crimes of the church (which succeeded so splendidly by exterminating the opposition, esp the Gnostics). At the same time, and this is emotionally difficult for me to say since I loathe those very same medieval, negative aspects of religion in general, there are some positive aspects that take a hold and keep showing up in writing. Marx didn't just say that religion was the opium of the people; he also said that it was the sigh of the oppressed soul -- its craving for beauty, for music, for some kind of grace and caress. <br /><br />Yes, we only have so much mental energy, can attend -- truly attend -- to only one thing at a time. And yes, for me too there is always some conflict between "poetry events" and our creative solitude. Those who organize those events are more extroverted, it seems to me -- and I am very grateful to them. When I tried to be an organizer, and to the small extent that I still am, with the San Diego Poetry Salon, it felt mostly oppressive.orianahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04209366167129773052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-1517406951702079322012-02-21T21:54:27.439-08:002012-02-21T21:54:27.439-08:00Reading your blog is what going to church or synog...Reading your blog is what going to church or synogogue could be...a place to revere, to learn and praise what inspires us, what enlightens our senses and perceptions. I learn so much from your posts and often it is meditative -- sometimes it's just a phrase that will evolve into a whole new direction for me. I couldn't agree more about attention... Consider they are divided into "units", cherished units that we can waste at will because that is part of life as well as direct their energies toward productive means. Being so closely involved with various poetry activities I am almost honor-bound to post and keep these activities alive but they do detract from my own need for silence and sometimes they may even serve as an excuse.<br /><br />"For the more we are, the richer everything we experience is. And those who want to have a deep love in their lives must collect and save for it, and gather honey." <br /><br />Giving it up for Rilke, once again whose supply of honey is endless having faught his way into silence because...he believed. <br /><br /><br />LoisL.P. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12147709199917521165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-41179045345962627772012-02-20T11:49:19.238-08:002012-02-20T11:49:19.238-08:00I didn't mean to say that no one ever had a ha...I didn't mean to say that no one ever had a happy childhood. I think Trotsky, writing about his time, is profoundly correct in pointing out that only a tiny minority of children had what got glorified as a "happy childhood." Many children lived in utter misery -- still do in our time, if we consider the world rather than just the richer countries. So many children like Hansel and Gretel, whose parents can't feed them . . . But I think I do know what you mean about the time outdoors, and I agree -- just being able to stand between tall trees after school was happiness for me, a bit of the Garden of Eden. It was one of life's caresses.orianahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04209366167129773052noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7760986403290352152.post-40765452757645992112012-02-19T16:15:19.290-08:002012-02-19T16:15:19.290-08:00I love your picture. Your analysis is thought pro...I love your picture. Your analysis is thought provoking. But, some of us did have happy childhoods--at least the time outside, enjoying the beauty of nature.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com