Good Advice
A poem needs an edge for it to be memorable for me.
Dear friends,
Hallo to you from all of us at Poetry Unbound — those of you who signed up months ago when we began building towards this, and those who signed up yesterday (welcome friends from The Pause)! We’re glad you’re here.
Our sixth season begins tomorrow, on Monday, September 26th, and will continue for 12 weeks; two episodes a week, one each on Mondays and Fridays. (Join us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.) We’ve got 24 magnificent episodes for you: poems that explore lostness, insects, love, spiritual yearning, mythological creatures, power, self-care, grief, religion, death, and friendship. Putting together every season of Poetry Unbound is a joy, and the weeks when the episodes are released are always enjoyable, especially hearing back on socials about how the poem is finding you.
With that in mind, our first episode this Monday is David Wagoner’s poem “Lost.” I remember where I was when I read this poem: visiting my parents’ house in Cork. My dad had gotten me a gift of a poetry anthology, and I was in the room that had been mine when I was growing up, browsing through some of the poems. And there it was: “Lost” by David Wagoner. It’s a series of instructions to a person who is lost, and the language is clipped, almost curt. “Stand still.” the poem opens — an imperative instruction.
I am not always a fan of poems that are in this form of the “lyric address” — sometimes I can find them a little sentimental, giving me what it is I want to hear, rather than what I need to. A poem needs an edge for it to be memorable for me. The voice that speaks in this “Lost” poem is not sentimental at all. It reminds me of an old friend to whom I’d sometimes go for advice. “You must change your habits,” she’d say to me, or “You’re making the same mistakes as before.” I rarely came away from my visits to her feeling comforted. Why did I keep going to her? Because I never knew what she’d say.
Each time we share a Poetry Unbound newsletter, we’re going to invite you to respond to a prompt. If you have the inclination, I’d love to see what you’d do to represent some good advice that was given to you. You don’t need to give us the story at all (in fact, it’d be great if you’d leave the story obscure). You can put the story in the imperative — a tense used for giving orders, or instructions — and just let the voice of good advice speak for itself, without populating your comment with narrative. That way, our responses may read like a long stream of instructions given from voices that were brave enough, and insightful enough, to offer them.
A few of us from On Being will respond to your comments — with delight and thanks. It may be that recalling advice brings you into a poem that has been waiting for your attention for years.
Thank you friends, for listening to Poetry Unbound, and for connecting with us here. I’ve got a few events happening in light of the launch of the Poetry Unbound book that are linked just below.
See you in the comments,
Pádraig
Come say hello at a launch event near you (friends in the US, it’ll be out just before the holidays) and pre-order your copy of the book here:
Waterstones in Londontown (Gower St): Tuesday, October 4, 6:30pm local time
Waterstones Norwich (Castle St): Thursday, October 6, 7pm local time
Books Upstairs Dublin (D’Olier St, Dublin 2): Monday, October 10, 6pm local time *** free admission, but do email campaigns@canongate.co.uk to let them know you’re coming (so we can make enough tea)
Crescent Arts Centre Belfast: Tuesday, October 11, 6pm local time
And the lovely people at the Omega Center, near Rhinebeck, NY are hosting a Poetry Unbound retreat from October 23-28. I’ll be there with a few others from On Being, and we’d be delighted to meet you there.
When you find your hands working against your heart, your feet need to be leading you toward the door.
The word no is a complete sentence.