The Uncarved Blog

I came across Tweetspeak Poetry Friday night (Feb 1, 2019) and read this moving post by Angela Odonnell on Haiku: Pierced by Beauty. Angela tells a story of her 5-year old’s unexpected emotional reaction when shown a birthday gift of hamsters. He “peered inside the cage, burst into hot tears, and began wailing inconsolably, ‘I want to BE one!'” They “were mystified—both in that inexplicable moment and for years afterward.”

One day, while Angela “was reading the letters of poet John Keats,” she “received some small insight into this mystery. The young Keats would invest himself so entirely in the books he was reading (and in the lives he was living) he would become one with the creatures and emotions he encountered.” She said “the master poet wrote of—watching the birds outside his window, he would imagine himself scratching and pecking in the gravel alongside them.” She continues with this clear definition of what he called “negative capability”. I’ll underline the essence of it.

This “negative capability” Keats so prized — the impulse to negate The Self and become The Other, to inhabit a state of being perceived outside oneself—had overwhelmed our small son when he first set eyes on his hamsters, amazing little beings he had never seen before. Pierced by their beauty, his capacity to become them was outstripped by his desire, his five impassioned, puzzling words proclaiming the power and lamenting the limits of his imagination.

She then segued into a few beautiful examples of haiku by the masters to illustrate the power of how this short 3-line, 17-syllable form of Japanese poetry can convey more with less. The poet helps us to see the beauty they saw—the image and the poem—so that we are pierced by beauty twice. As Angela says, “It’s like being alive twice.”

While I also admire and write haiku, it was her explanation of what Keats called “negative capability” that reminded me of an experience I had had in nature, and something I later read some writer describe as “reverse seeing,” which seemed similar, yet different. I was inspired to post a comment about it and ended up composing this little epistle, which Angela did approve. Here it is:

My response to Haiku: Pierced by Beauty

Lovely post, Angela! I never fully understood Keats’ “negative capability” until I read your clear explanation of it. Thank you. I remember reading what one writing facilitator described as “reverse seeing,” which sounds similar. I was lucky to have had such an experience once, not knowing that’s what it was at the time.

Around 30 years ago, a friend and I drove out to the countryside and ended up at Round Prairie Park. There had been a drought that summer and in a pond stood many large lotus pads. My friend, an artist, took out her sketchbook and started drawing them. I asked for a piece of paper and tried to write a poem about them, but it was nothing worth mentioning.

We had both read “The Secret Life of Plants” and talked about the lotuses and their sensitivity. She resumed sketching, and I tried writing again. Nothing notable. I didn’t realize it, but I was warming up by pre-writing.

At one point I wondered what the lotus pads were feeling about us looking at them. All of a sudden my mind took on a different, heightened perspective. The words came and I quickly wrote them down. When it was over, I looked down at a poem on the page! It was as if it was dictated to me. At that point a bird “blessed” my hand from the tree above me. Nature’s confirmation!

I had later read in The Fairfield Ledger that Sparrowgrass Poetry Forum had put out a call for poems, so I sent it in to their competition. Much to my surprise the poem won an award!

You can read, “Ode to the Artist: Sketching Sketching Lotus Pads at Round Prairie Park” on my blog: https://theuncarvedblog.com/2011/01/16/ode-to-the-artist-a-magical-day-looking-at-lotus-pads/.

I also mention another poem that later came out of that experience. The editor had wanted me to submit a poem for their next publication so I wrote about how some poems come to be written. It was sort of a commentary on the first one. You can read “Sometimes Poetry Happens” on my blog: https://theuncarvedblog.com/2011/01/16/sometimes-poetry-happens-a-poem-about-the-mystery-of-creativity/.

I never planned to write this little epistle, but kept expanding and refining it to get it to this stage. Thank you tweetspeak for this opportunity to share this story about some of my early poetry!

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I discuss this idea in these future posts. Ada Limón, the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate describes what Ranier Maria Rilke reveals can happen if you give yourself fully over to a Thing (The Other), how it can respond if your attention is completely devoted to it. I share how 4 poems came to me: Being written—how some poems come through us. Karen Matheson sings a beautiful Gaelic song written by Brendan Graham who describes how he was chosen as a conduit for its sad story to be told.