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Indolence, Politics, and the Good Gray Poet, Part 2

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Walt Whitman and Harry Stafford, 1878.

A Blog Post                                                                                                                                                                  by Reuben Gelley Newman

To see the first half of this two-part post, click here.

National context undeniably informs the poetry we create, and America’s conflict and social upheaval during the late 19th century often intersected with Whitman’s personal life and poetry. He tended wounded soldiers in Washington, D.C., during the Civil War, bearing witness to the turmoil it unleashed. Readers both lambasted and celebrated his overtly hetero- and homo-erotic poems, which inspired British intellectuals to advocate for acceptance of homosexuals in the 1870s and 80s. Although he outwardly denied any homosexuality, he had relationships with men almost 40 years younger than him, including George and Susan Stafford’s son, Harry, whom Whitman met at a printing shop. (There’s an obvious power imbalance considering the age gap and Whitman’s cultural status, and it’s impossible to tell exactly how equitable the relationship was. From letters, it seems like it was relatively consensual, if tumultuous, but we should probably still be skeptical.)

Drawing on these rich and complex experiences, he wrote obviously political poems, such as his elegies for Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and “O Captain, My Captain.” His erotic poems, including the famous homoerotic “Calamus” ones, were also socially conscious in their disregard for Victorian prudishness. But his expressions of indolence — particularly during his time at the Staffords’ farm in southern New Jersey —  can hardly be political, right?

I’m not so sure. Today, I don’t feel as if “indolent” poems, or poems that express joy more broadly, get all that much traction in the poetry market. (Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and Chen Chen’s When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities seem like exceptions to this.) But reading Specimen Days, I wonder if indolence, in the sense of “love of ease,” can be a counterpart to and part of the political.

For poets from marginalized backgrounds, or even for Whitman — who, as I said in Part 1, was disabled later in life, though hardly “marginalized” — perhaps writing openly about pure joy or indolence could be empowering. Recall the definition of “indolent” that reads “free from pain.” Freedom from pain, of course, is virtually impossible for any human to experience, and that kind of indolence might be even rarer for marginalized poets. Still, “Indolent” writing could serve as an important contrast to taut, emotional poems that explore political situations or recount injustices against the speaker. It could also simply exist by itself. Although it’s important to be aware of the political, no one has to write “political” poetry. It’s a political choice to write a “nature poem,” say, whatever that is — but it’s not necessarily a bad choice.

And that brings us back to Indolent Books. As Michael said, “indolent” refers to some of our “slowly progressing” poets. (Although not all of them are slowly progressing—take Logan February, who has published two chapbooks and whose first full-length collection is coming out next year!) But Indolent’s mission is also strikingly political. Look no further than our online projects What Rough Beast and HIV Here & Now, and our mission statement:

Ultimately, Indolent publishes books the editors care about. The main criteria are that the work be innovative, provocative, risky, and relevant. Indolent is queer flavored but inclusive and maintains a commitment to diversity among  authors, artists, designers, developers, and other team members.

Does this political mission mesh with the historical definitions of “indolent” I’ve discussed? I don’t know. What I do know is that “indolent” and “political” poetry have coexisted for centuries, since well before our good gray poet. As Whitman realized, literature can be an escape, a fantasy, and a utopia: a place free from pain. But his optimistic vision of America was also grounded in political reality. I think such grounding is deeply necessary for poets, both personally and collectively. We need not be optimistic, of course; our poems can turn grief into anger. But whatever our viewpoint, through writing our own hurt and our nation’s, we might begin to free ourselves of pain.

 

In addition to interning here at Indolent, where he edits the blog, Reuben Gelley Newman is an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. His work appears in Alexandria Quarterly, What Rough Beast, and HIV Here & Now, and is forthcoming in The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, 2nd Edition.

Indolence, Politics, and the Good Gray Poet, Part 1

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A Blog Post                                                                                                                                                                    by Reuben Gelley Newman

I’m here to talk about indolence — not just your typical laziness, idleness, or slothfulness, but indolence. The adjective “indolent” derives from the prefix “in” and the Latin word “dolens,” meaning “hurting,” “suffering,” or “grieving.” In the 18th and 19th centuries, an indolent ulcer or tumor was “painless” (OED), and, seemingly, that morphed into Merriam Webster’s current definition of “slow to develop or heal.” But since the same period, “indolent” has also described humans: “averse to exertion or toil”; “slothful, lazy, idle” (OED). Why, then, is it the name of our press?

Michael Broder told me he “often used it to mean something like moving at a relaxed pace.” He applies the idea of “slowly progressing” to poets: writers who, for whatever reason, take a longer time with their poetry than many — and, possibly even because of that, produce excellent work.

Interestingly, the noun form of indolent has other connotations, including the more positive “love of ease,” and, in obsolete meanings, “freedom from pain,” and “a state of rest or ease, in which neither pain nor pleasure is felt” (OED). And here’s where “the good, gray poet” of American democracy, Walt Whitman, comes in.

I’ve been doing research on Whitman’s relationship to his paralysis later in life. After a paralytic stroke in 1873, Whitman was debilitated, and his conception of himself as such comes through in his 1882 prose memoirs, Specimen Days (available on Project Gutenberg if you’re interested). Much of the memoir recalls his visits to the farm of his friends, George and Susan Stafford, in southern New Jersey, where he spent a lot of time idling about in nature. One passage, titled “Summer Sights and Indolencies,” reads:

June 10th.—As I write, 5-1/2 P.M., here by the creek, nothing can exceed the quiet splendor and freshness around me. We had a heavy shower, with brief thunder and lightning, in the middle of the day; and since, overhead, one of those not uncommon yet indescribable skies (in quality, not details or forms) of limpid blue, with rolling silver-fringed clouds, and a pure-dazzling sun. For underlay, trees in fulness of tender foliage—liquid, reedy, long-drawn notes of birds—based by the fretful mewing of a querulous cat-bird, and the pleasant chippering-shriek of two kingfishers. I have been watching the latter the last half hour, on their regular evening frolic over and in the stream; evidently a spree of the liveliest kind. They pursue each other, whirling and wheeling around, with many a jocund downward dip, splashing the spray in jets of diamonds—and then off they swoop, with slanting wings and graceful flight, sometimes so near me I can plainly see their dark-gray feather-bodies and milk-white necks.

Here Whitman truly embraces indolence, in the sense of not just being “free from pain” but of being free, entirely, to observe the world around him, to delight in each and every thing. Take an earlier, more famous example from “Song of Myself”: “I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.” Here, as in Specimen Days, a certain languor seems to renew his soul. Perhaps this is the kind of indolence Whitman craved — and needed — in an America that was fraught with political turmoil. Indolence might be something we, too, crave. But in a world that requires change, does our poetry require politics, and can indolence fit into a political poetics? I’m gonna go be indolent now, but I’ll have more thoughts for you on Tuesday.

 

In addition to interning here at Indolent, where he edits the blog, Reuben Gelley Newmanis an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. His work appears in Alexandria Quarterly, What Rough Beast, and HIV Here & Now, and is forthcoming in The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, 2nd Edition.

The Rhetoric Surrounding Poetry of Illness

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A Blog Post                                                                                                                                                                by Olivia Hu

Writing as a form of autonomy, both on physical and mental realms, is not a foreign practice. The conception of poetry is almost immediately correlated to healing, which is not completely wrong; poetry is no doubt a cathartic, almost ritualistic experience for many who battle illness and disability—yet it is also integral to question the many limitations of such associations. As a poet who battles illness, I have often questioned the authenticity of my own work and the narratives that I subconsciously adhere to. In a society that seeks digestible, poignant narratives, the often vulgar realities of illness are shoved aside.

Poetry surrounding adversity is not uncommon—in fact, one could argue that hardship is both the catalyst and the basis of poetic work. Illness and disability here are inherently linked; as elements of emotional burden, one would expect the prevalence of such topics within poetry. Yet there is a danger in such a way of thinking. The archetype of the “creative genius,” an artist fueled by their suffering (specifically that of mental illness), creates a culture where pain is equated to “good” work. I myself often accept this archetype subconsciously. At a local reading, I momentarily felt dignity when the organizer announced the themes of my work, as if to say: my poetry is poetry. Of course, there isn’t anything wrong with pride in one’s work, identity, and the artistic cultivation of a personal narrative if it happens to relate to suffering, yet once I evaluated the significance I placed on my illness within my work, distortions were uncovered. “I don’t ever write happy poetry” is perhaps a common sentiment among writers—but why? The perceived necessity for artists to revel in emotional and physical difficulty means that work that is celebratory is ultimately seen as unnecessary, not poignant, or lacking in significance. It is only when celebratory poems spring from narratives of healing after pain that they seem to receive similar reciprocation as those that are directly sorrowful. It is crucial to break the idea that mental illness creates a good artist, or that artists need to have mental illness to write good poetry. It’s an almost obvious statement, but I and many of my peer writers have subconsciously manifested these stigmatizations.

Yet while it’s difficult to navigate the realms of “happy” poetry, there is also an often unrecognized boundary of vulgarity that cannot be crossed. When suffering in poetry becomes so raw and visceral, it breaks larger, prescribed societal narratives of illness and pain—and in doing so, often creates a blatant narrative that seems almost disingenuous. When poets break convention in writing about illness, the rawness often becomes greater than the narrative. Work becomes a polarity—it is either greatly admirable or seen as overwhelmingly excessive. I recently wrote a poem of the disassembling of the body and was met with confusion: “I don’t understand, so where is the illness?” It is this innate response to seek to understand, to clarify self-histories that many poets skirt around within their work. But when you write about illness, there is not always a consistent plot. Sometimes there is no plot. And there is no necessity in clear description of emotion. The dismembering of an organ seems overwhelming because it breaks established conventions of what illness is—a story.

My poetic autonomy rests on metaphorical extremes and jarring notions. I write this way not to break social convention, but because such a tone reflects my raw experiences with illness—they render the same atmosphere that such facets of writing allow. I have often questioned if my poetry has breached the boundary where it is no longer feasible, and rather overwhelmingly “ugly.” I find that “ugly” poetry becomes ugly when the illness is no longer something digestible for readers, which in actuality, is almost always the case. The difference is simply that every poet has a specific style, narrative, and voice. The subconscious pressure to write work that the audience would fathom in its entirety has persisted within me despite my attempts to discard it. But I have often questioned—is it necessary for audiences to understand poems completely? What is “understanding?” And when is truly understanding illness externally possible? Such questions extend further to concerns of how we read poetry, and whether it is truly necessary to gain meaning from all work. To truly accept lack of clarity, to welcome ambiguity, is to read poetry more expansively. By doing so, one discards preconceived notions of what illness is. No longer do we seek predictable stories that overlook the reality of illness.

Of course, poetry’s beauty still rests heavily on its ability to share experience; it would be foolish to ignore the audience’s importance for any artistic form. It would also be callous to disregard the many narratives that do happen to fall in “predictable patterns of illness,” as such would be to negate authentic experiences for the purpose of breaking authenticity, which is ironic as a whole. The recognition, however, that ill poets often navigate a difficult dichotomy between subconsciously predictable narratives and perceived vulgar over-characterization is one of great importance. Most, if not all, narratives of pain and struggle are necessary for not only external visibility, but the construction of the self. Many ill poets, including myself, use poetry as a means to reclaim power. Through narratives of suffering, we shift the pain from an uncontrollable means to our own voice. The emergence and conceptualization of our illnesses creates artistic meaning. Despite its stigmatizations, subconscious influence, and perceived inauthenticity, the rhetoric of illness prevails as integral to the self construction of our identities.

Olivia Hu is a poet based in Vancouver, Canada. She has published work in journals such as Glass Poetry Press, Cleaver, Barking Sycamores, Red Paint Hill Press, Cadaverine, Eunoia, After the Pause, Crab Fat Magazine, among others. She is the author of the micro-chapbook Ocean’s Children (Platypus Press 2016) , a Best New Poets Nominee (2018), and was recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing awards and the Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest. In addition to writing, she is the Editor-In-Chief of VENUS MAG. Her poetry can be found at oliviahupoet.com.