A few days ago, poet Cameron Scott sent out an email that asked “What role should ‘the self’ play in a poem? In other words should a poem be about the self as little as possible, or what the heck, it’s all about me?” He’s a contributing editor for CheekTeeth, the blog for Trachodon Magazine, and is looking to incorporates responses into a future post. With his permission, I asked that I respond here at Best American Poetry.
And this is what I have to say. In some ways, I feel like the issue is moot, yet it must be essential to the human (thinking) condition because it’s been a recurring issue in Western thought at least since Plato. His viewpoint was based in his theory of essential forms, the human soul (as opposed to self) a complex form comprised of a rational, spirited, and bodily element. Plato’s version of the soul as an essential form, and therefore separate from the body, is in part the root of what later becomes the ghost in the machine, as coined by Ryle in the last century, as conceived by Descartes in the 1600s. Aristotle, in contrast, argued the human soul was not separate from the body but rather more like an oak is to its acorn, that essential (Platonic) form is the purpose that the matter serves, a being-thing the result of a unity of its form and matter (in poetry, its form and content?). I see this viewpoint evolving into more of the blank slate theory of self, traced to Locke in the 1600s.
In more recent times, we have social constructionism and essentialism—constructionism, I think, currently winning the battle. In modern and contemporary poetry, we see this battle being waged across the field of the last century with the relative fall of received forms and the greater reception (that’s not the best way to put any of this…) of avant-garde forms. Tony Hoagland sort of follows this trajectory in his recent article on the New York School in The Writer’s Chronicle. To bring it back to Cameron Scott’s opening inquiry, we see the “role of self,” at one extreme with the Confessionalists and at another with language poets and those whose fragmented, distracted poems leave the construction of the self, speaker, etc. up to the best guesses of their readers. I like Hoagland’s ending comment in the Chronicle about it: “If the Confessionals shrank the compass of our poetry to a narcissistic focus on the personal…. The hapless, wonky, distracted poems of the moment evade the whole issue.”
To more directly respond to Scott’s question, then, and with all of the above in mind, I tend to think of my “self” as an innate effect of the physiology that produces it (me), of the experience that helps shape and build the genetic blueprint for said physiology. I certainly don’t believe in the blank slate, a theory that can deny human nature, but I don’t buy theories of essentialism either. I like how Stephen Pinker puts it in The Blank Slate: “If thought and action are products of the physical activity of the brain, and if thought and action can be affected by experience, then experience has to leave a trace in the physical structure of the brain.” Seems to be common sense, really.
As far as poetry is concerned, the presence of a “self” is undeniable. Do our best to fragment it, to distract it, to break it apart at the fundamentals of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, every poem is a fundamental, inherent production and promotion of self. It may be many other things, of course—including the negation of self and the inclusion of multiple selves—but there it is, nevertheless. I think it’s an element better aligned to voice, perhaps, than to subject matter. Maybe we can even begin saying of writers early in their careers—she has found her self rather than she has found her voice.
Accordingly, the self’s role is more an issue of process and craft than of subject matter—or should be. It seems to me that many nascent poets begin with self as subject matter but move farther from it and closer to poetry as their careers evolve, as craft elements and the nature of art take precedence over the me-me-oh-suffering-me mentality of many teenaged beginners. Even Plath, the most confessional of Confessionals speaks to this end when she says (thanks to Cate Marvin for the quote), “I think my poems immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional experiences I have, but I must say I cannot sympathize with these cries from the heart that are informed by nothing except a needle or a knife, or whatever it is. I believe that one should be able to control and manipulate experiences, even the most terrifying, like madness, being tortured, this sort of experience, and one should be able to manipulate these experiences with an informed and intelligent mind.”
I like to apply what Jerry Garcia said about soloing to the role of self. In a Garcia interview I read, he said that he built his solos by knowing the melody of the tune, then either by playing toward it or by playing against it. That seems to me a relevant analogy since I think not knowing how the self figures into the poem can be detrimental, resulting in lapses of sentimentality and sloppiness, a poor ear for the timbre of the poem, much like not knowing a tune’s melody can result in a solo with poor phrasing and timing.
I don’t know that any of this addresses Scott’s email in a way he finds useful, but I’m out of time. Your input is welcome.
"The self’s role is more an issue of process and craft than of subject matter—or should be." Yup. The personal is there to access the universal. Or, as I have told more than one creative writing class, if you are writing just to show how much you suffer, guess what? I can always find someone who has suffered more than you. Just being emo don't no poetry make.
Physical beings that we are, we must use the Self as the prism to refract what it means to be human. But if that's as far as you are willing to go, why not save your readers time and just stand screaming on a street corner?
Posted by: Laura Orem | September 20, 2011 at 07:23 PM
Interesting post! Thanks for this. I wonder if "not knowing how the self figures into the poem," rather than being detrimental, can be an integral part of how a poet 'solos,' or plays (in all meanings of that word). Not sure we can ever fully answer how the self figures in, so maybe animating the question through the process of writing is what's key... The poems I love best do this, I think.
Posted by: Jessica Garratt | September 20, 2011 at 08:00 PM
Couldn't agree more. I don't think poets need be particularly emo, and I don't think poets particularly want to read emo--at least I don't.
Posted by: Damon McLaughlin | September 20, 2011 at 11:58 PM
Sure, I don't see why not. Really, the self is beside the point, so "not knowing" probably isn't that big of a concern... although I personally find it handy to discover where "I" stand in a piece so I can push my self to the side and get down to the real business of poem making. That's usually when I make my best revisions -- when I have no attachments to the writing, as though the self/original-maker of the poem is no longer present.
Posted by: Damon McLaughlin | September 21, 2011 at 12:05 AM