Summer Plans For Timeless
I want to begin by thanking all of you, from the bottom of my heart, for supporting my endeavor here at Timeless. Especially as you have been brave enough to support a fox rather than the customary hedgehog who usually thrives in the closed garden of a digital setting. Foxes, it seems, are simply not made for the digital era. But foxes also don’t just lay down and die. Playing dead is for possums. And if Isaiah Berlin had a place for them in his famous essay The Hedgehog and the Fox, he would have used them.
The wild card here is that I’ve wrestled with the part of me that also likes to talk about geopolitics. And we’ve called it a tie. While my feuilleton Friday segment goes on vacation during the summer, it will return in September as a bimonthly affair. I’ll steadily develop it as an outlet for non-literary things. In the literary corner of Substack, a bit of variety from a single newsletter is welcome, it seems, as long as it’s consistent. I have
’s Castalia in mind.As well as a facelift, I will also think of ways during the summer to bring in content that is…well, less about me. Maybe more guest posts. Still thinking about it. For now, those who are into that will be happy to hear that I have three collaborations coming up with
: the first about California author Dave Eggers. The second about Boris Pasternak (mainly Dr. Zhivago, but might throw in another post about his poems or his short novel Last Summer). And a grand essay series - probably in October or November - on Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who I don’t talk about here at Timeless as much as I should.For now, during the summer, I have three plans in general:
Continue to publish poetry
Re-serialize my sci-fi/space opera novel, titled Escape From Starshire, as well as writing samples from some of my other projects (including my ongoing novel about the life of St. Patrick)
A few essays for paid subscribers. Including any new special requests: let me know in the comments below!
There will also be at least two Substack writer reviews. Apologies to all involved for the wait. The reviews are coming!
I have already serialized a few chapters of Escape From Starshire. But kind of like the “previously, on [x TV show]” segments, it’s been long enough to where a refresher is warranted. But I also wanted to add an extra early chapter and some edits to those already out since I was a bit light on the worldbuilding when I began. Since then, a few “revelations” about the Anglo Quadrant and the Franco Quadrant have come to my mind. And, unlike before, I will share these early segments with all subscribers. The first 6 chapters or so, and then the rest will go behind the paywall. (Not to worry,
: you will learn about the role of tea by the time equinox arrives!)I’m hoping that by the end of the summer, all chapters will be completed. (If not serialized) I’m looking forward to sharing it with you! (Those anticipating a continuation of The Bo Lan Mysteries, my other serialization, can look forward to that once Escape From Starshire is done; I need to take a research break)
Lastly, on the publishing front: my first poetry chapbook, Night Journeys, is nearly complete. I predict a July release. I should be able to get another chapbook done by the end of the Summer. Work on my third novel, Tale of a Muse that Fought an AI, is ongoing but the light is at the end of the tunnel. This is my most sophisticated and nuanced work yet and I’m very excited about it. I predict a late Summer release. I will also work on my next satire. If it goes as well as The Taco Psychosis, it’ll be out in the Fall. (For those who haven’t forgotten my post from last December, I haven’t forgotten the Armenian travelogue I promised you)
I wanted, however, to do something I normally don’t do: let all of you give a little input into what comes next. As all of you do me the honor of being my first (and, currently, only) fanbase, I’d love to get your input on the following two questions.
First: I have two satire ideas in mind and am equally ready to begin either one. Based solely on the title alone - and with the world of 2024 in mind - please choose one of the two preferred options below. Whichever one gets the most votes will be my next satire.
And second: I have a nutty, eccentric, sci-fi Christmas trilogy idea in mind, and have for a long time. One year’s Christmas is just as good as another year’s Christmas when it comes to preparing something like this. If I begin this summer, there’s a chance I can have it ready by December. But want to know first if there’s interest.
Thanks for your input! I really appreciate it! Now: for this week’s post!
Thoughts on the Art of Poetry
Some of you have no doubt wondered: if you’re a poet, Felix, why not write about the art of poetry?
It would be nice. But truth be told: the art of poetry is a very intuitive and visceral thing for me. I don’t think I can explain it in poetic, literary language and do it justice. And even if I could, I don’t really think it would be healthy. If prose is literature of the madman like Don Quixote, the commoner like Sancho Panza and the tavern where dwelt fair Dulcinea, poetry is the literature of kings, bards, heroes, sibyls and sages. It dwells in a spiritual realm that prose cannot touch: at least that was true of poetry written in a more venerable age. While I don’t want to imply that poetry can’t be “common,” the art of poetry has more to lose from an expulsion out of Eden than prose. As I described in my recent post about high literature, it’s not about better or worse but simple state of being.
Americans, on the whole, have not been all that outstanding at poetry if we remove the conventional measuring stick of quantity, which by definition isn’t even a measurement of quality to begin with. There is a reason why I haven’t yet encountered an American poet who has the gall to call America “the greatest country in the history of the world.” As far as poetry is concerned, the opposite is true. Like the Jolly Green Giant rising above the plains of Minnesota, Walt Whitman stands alone. Beyond Whitman America has no Dante. It has no Lord Byron. It has no Mickiewicz. It has no Beowulf. It has no Friedrich Holderlin. It has no William Blake. It has no Fernando Pessoa, although he owed a great debt to Whitman. It has no Andrej Sladkovic. I could go on.
The list of truly sublime poets to come from America is small but would also include, along with Whitman: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath. (Think I’m missing any? Let me know in the comments!) And though it is often belittled and looked down upon, America does have at least one indigenous form of poetry (at least if we look past American Indian poetry for just a moment): cowboy poetry.
I mentioned in another post that I grew up exposed to many extremes. One I didn’t mention is the radical difference in the quality of poetry between the United States and the Slavic world. Poetry, as has been often observed, is a raw indigenous talent of Slavic peoples; assisted in part by the conceptual compactness of Slavic words (no articles) as well as their elasticity. This is true of the major Slavic cultures, like the Russians and the Poles. This is true of the marginal ones, like the Ukrainians. And this is true of the small Slavs including the Slovaks, the Slovenes and the Croats.
Another reason I find it difficult to write about poetry: if American poetry is so mediocre, what do I have to say that a Blake, or an Auden, or a Pessoa might not explain with greater insight and wisdom? That’s not to say that I think I suck: I don’t think that, and I don’t think most of my readers think that. Rather, the circumstances of time and place - California, the Millennial generation, an ideologically lobotomized United States, a time with seriously declining artistic standards - also bring with it the possibility that I might not be trustworthy on the topic of poetic sublimity by virtue of being the product of a lost generation. It’s a bit like asking what Rome means to me as a Roman Catholic when you have the chance to ask an actual Roman Catholic from Rome.
And until I publish a universally (in poetry circles) acclaimed masterpiece, I don’t know if anything I have to say will do much to resuscitate what is, in fact, a dying albeit persistent genre.
But with that said: I do have one observation about poetry in the contemporary age that has, over the years, grown prescient. It is free verse, not poetry, that is dying. Whatever my thoughts on the art of poetry, I am not black-pilled. Though maybe I should be.
That is not to say I think free verse is dead: if I did think that, I would stop writing in free verse altogether. And some of my poems are in free verse. But as the post-Beatnik world of poetry saturates and saturates the Poeto-sphere with mostly free verse, the boundaries that set it apart from prose become diluted. Poetry is like hair: one can style it in certain fancy ways without the use of a braid or a hairband if one hires a talented hairdresser. But for the most part, hair that is unbraided and without hair bands will fail to stay in place. After that, it’s just…hair.
The simple way to put it is: there isn’t all that much that is poetic about free verse post-Beatnik. The distinction is so diluted that the act of writing verse is basically elementary in today’s day and age. With respect to trauma victims and all that, it’s little wonder that poetry is the tool of therapy rather than a sublime art.
Like hairdressers, there will always be a few poets who have a rare talent for exceptional free verse. For those chosen few, the accomplishment of the Beats was necessary. But poetry does not exist in a vacuum. In every other facet of society since 1945, the trend has been degeneration. Or - if that word offends people - deconstruction, primitivism, low-common-denominator-aspiring. Take your pick. Free verse, for better or for worse, is poetry’s equivalent of this civilization-wide phenomenon of racing to the bottom and celebrating it.
Whereas postmodern deconstruction especially has left Western civilization in conceptual ruins, the effect it has had on poetry is twofold: the poets become balladmongers by virtue of an infantilized sense of individuality and the childish and petty desire to powermonger. While the poems themselves, under the guise of so-called “liberation,” have their standards removed so that all that’s left is a mildly poetic jumble of words. Standards are a crucial factor in setting verse apart from prose. “It is good” might be a satisfactory and even beautiful phrase in the hands of Ernest Hemingway. But not for a poet. That’s not to say they can’t find a way to use it in a quality poem. Just that it’s a lot harder precisely because of poetic standards.
Standards are, of course, incompatible with the logical end goal of deconstruction. But even if deconstruction was miraculously ended and reversed, the process of “equalization” among the arts - and, indeed, among every facet of human existence - expects poetry to be generic. Sometimes it is called “democratization” so that sucker Americans can believe they’re toppling a monarchy or something in their spare time. What keeps poetry standardless and generic, however, is not any kind of manifest destiny of democratization originating with the Founding Fathers; merely the unquenchable envy of our fellow man. The very emotion that makes Kurt Vonnegut’s dystopia Harrison Bergeron a reality of our time. Just as talented and beautiful ballerinas need weights and masks respectively to make sure they’re “equal” to the less talented and uglier dancers, so too is there an impulse in American culture to be suspicious of anything that aspires to be greater than themselves. It is for this reason that Harrison Bergeron is, hands down, the best specimen of dystopian lit an American author has ever created.
The problem is: poetry, as both a popular and a high art, has to do exactly that. Aspire to be greater than ourselves. There is a reason why the statues of poets in many countries are at least as large, if not larger, than that of important Statesmen.
This, more than anything, is why poetry doesn’t sell. Even (or should I say especially) in a capitalist economy with a “customer is king” philosophy, poetry cannot be something it is not for the sole purpose of convincing a potential consumer to part with some of their money and sell itself. This is probably why a fair number of poets became Communists. They were dead wrong and sold their souls. But the impulse is understandable.
The human need for poetry - and it does exist - was once understood around the world: after all, poetry is the most universal art in the world. Be it hunter/gatherers or advanced Mesopotamians, almost all world cultures on this spectrum have produced poetry. The novel, though less venerable, is fortunate in that it need only change topically. And when it needs to change structurally, it usually can due to its greater elasticity of form. (Although many of the highly vaunted experiments with the novel in the 20th century don’t deserve as much acclaim as is often given them) Poetry doesn’t work that way. Either its readers love and/or need poetry or they do not. Simple as that.
One statement I like to make that irks some is my insistent belief that there is no such thing as a “prose poem:” what most people call “prose poems” is either poetic prose or prose-like verse. The actual meeting place of the two is impossible to reach except, maybe, in the third medium that is a verse play. This is why so-called “prose poems” are almost always unartistically nonsensical, dense or both in their use of words and meaning: prose and verse cannot reconcile their fundamental DNA. A “prose poem” is a mermecolion whose two halves - the lion and the ant - cancel each other out because one eats meat and the other eats grain. (To find out more about mermecolions, one should track it down in Jorge Luis Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings)
To get back to free verse: I think poetry stands a chance of being relevant again if it moves away from vacuous free verse and finds a fresh way to return to its structural roots. Poetry is the most individual art form of them all: a film needs actors, directors, cinematographers, etc; a painter needs an art gallery; a video game maker needs an IT team; music requires a band more often than not; and if a novelist is in less need of a publisher nowadays, they still need an editor, cover designer, etc. A poet only need themselves, pen and paper: hell, a poet doesn’t even need AI! Though it’s nicer to publish a book or a chapbook through an artsy indie publisher, if I wanted to I could just print out my poems, construct a chapbook at home and hand them to people. Then my artistic task is done.
Poetry needs its creator to be a real individual, more so than the novel where it’s easier to tell the stories of others. Poetry is the story of yourself: but one of its wonders is that, when done right, it negates the ego and other forms of selfishness. Never once, when reading the I-driven poems of Fernando Pessoa, does anyone think he’s being selfish simply because he’s referring to his own point of view. Some traditions in other countries might not require the poet to be a real individual (especially traditions of religious poetry); but Western poetry mandates it even if many don’t get the memo. When poetry is done by generic people we know, deep down, that we’re not interested. At the least we’ll see more of that person’s kitsch and genericness; at most we’ll see the kitsch and genericness in ourselves and lament because of it. This doesn’t do anything for us. But we don’t want to admit it to ourselves because it would sound mean or conceited. Maybe it would. But it has to be said.
Poetry is much like chess in this respect: just as chess is the game of personal accountability and agency, poetry is the equivalent art form.
This genericness of homo americanus and homo machinus in general is, I would argue, why too few people care about poetry today. They cared about Allen Ginsberg because they could tell he was a distinct, interesting and unique person with an artistic vision. They weren’t wrong. Howl doesn’t make me feel generic and kitschy: I suspect all of you, my dear readers, felt that to be true about your encounter with the famous poem even if it isn’t your cup of tea. Baudelaire was censored in France not simply because his poems were “pornographic” but because Baudelaire’s eroticism and all its accompanying symbolism stood apart from all other erotic literary creation. It transcended eroticism. It affected people, and not just in their pants.
Perhaps the reason I enjoy poetry in a way that differs from prose is that I can be honestly humble about it in a way that novel writing doesn’t encourage. (My novels, by the way, are the best: BUY THEM NOW!) Though not always the case in the past, poetry today doesn’t have the ego requirement individuals appear to need with the novel; though poetry has had its fair number of egotists.
Given what I’ve written above, I don’t know if I will transcend the conditioning of my lost generation. I do not know if I can transcend my Californian “balladmongering” heritage and learn from objectively better poetry traditions abroad as did Ezra Pound. And I don’t know if I will ever speak to the soul of America: though even if I haven’t lost that reading audience by being abroad, I think Whitman has done a good enough job for the lot of us.
But I know that I’m pretty good. I know others think I’m pretty good and I have a resume of publications to show for it. I know I’ve written poems that have given people meaning: sometimes I’ve been in the same room when that happened. And I strongly believe that before I breathe my last breath, I will have reached a zenith or two.
And with any luck, a few of you will be there to see it. Be it that time in Middle School when we read “Song For Myself” or from my own poems, I know for a fact that poetry isn’t dead and that it can speak even to the kinds of people one doesn’t expect it to speak to. Nor is your need for it nonexistent. It’s there. You just have to find it. And when the time is right - since everyone has their own journey to follow - you will.
I look forward to reading Taco Psychosis.
Looking forward to our three collaborations.
I have read lots of poetry, but never appreciated much of it beyond Dante and Whitman. However, last year I got into Rilke for a while. I do enjoy reading your poems.
Most of us encounter our poetry mostly in songs these days, I suppose. There are a lot of great lyricists. But that's another whole subject entirely.