A CATCH OF CHANGELINGS

What is poetry? My mother, a poet, attempted to define this genre her poem, “The Uncontained.” Poetry for her was the art of chasing that which is rarely caught.

In her poem there is an allusion to this in the words: “no sooner born, beheld than slipped the fragile snare.” Even when a poem succeeds, that which is present for the reader may be merely a flicker of the familiar which is vaguely–unexpectedly–alien.

She at one time wrote about a “catch of changelings”. The idea was that the writer begins writing to capture some idea or feeling and when the poem is complete, the poet discovers that what has been captured is something other than what inspired the writer, in other words a changeling**. This is the challenge of writing poetry.

In her chapbook, Glass Rain, Golden Rain, she also speaks about a “safari into soul country.” I prefer this description. When city dwellers go on safari, they expect to see both that which is familiar and what is alien to our native homes. They will encounter the familiar—plants—but such as would never grow in their own gardens. Animals will appear, but nothing like they might see in a city neighborhood. Everything is at once recognizable and strange enough to inspire awe.

That feeling of wonder is what the poet is always attempting to hold within the framework of words we call a poem. A poem succeeds when the reader feels that sense of awe after reading the words the poet has provided.

*(see Glass Rain feature this week)

**For those unfamiliar with the term “changeling”, it come from folklore. Wicked or mischievous fairies supposedly would sometimes steal a human child leaving one of their own kind in its place—the changeling.

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