Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poet

After reading "Once in the West" by Christian Wiman, I concluded that he is a poet worth reading more of and about. I turned to this, a collection of his essays. Ten of them are about poetry, there are about a dozen reviews of books of poetry, and there are six personal essays. The personal essays certainly belong, inasmuch as for Wiman poetry has been his life.Indeed, he begins the book as follows: "When I was twenty years old I set out to be a poet. That sounds like I was a sort of frigate raising anchor, and in a way I guess I was, though susceptible to the lightest of winds. * * * I still believe that a life in poetry demands absolutely everything -- including, it has turned out for me, the belief that a life in poetry demands absolutely everything." That speaks to the "ambition" of the book's title. The "survival" aspect takes on new urgency and poignancy in the last essay, in which Wiman discloses that he had recently been diagnosed with a rare incurable blood cancer. (That was nine years ago, and thankfully Wiman is still with us, teaching literature and religion at Yale Divinity School.)From 2003 to 2013 Wiman was editor of "Poetry" magazine. It can be safely assumed, then, that he is more knowledgeable about poetry than the average Joe. Most relevantly, he is much more knowledgeable about poetry than I am. Reading AMBITION AND SURVIVAL broadened and deepened my understanding of poetry and honed my "feel" for good poetry considerably.Two recurring points or themes stood out for me. One has to do with faith and belief. A poet, to be good, must have "faith in the mind's ability to find meaning in a world that exists independently of itself, and a concomitant faith in language to serve as a means of doing so." Perhaps, then, we should not be surprised to find that so much good poetry is suffused with religious faith and belief.The other theme relates to the importance of form in poetry. Personally, I much prefer poetry grounded in a formal structure of some sort. So, too, does Wiman ("I am more drawn to poetry of contained formal expressiveness * * * than to the sort of loose, discursive, anecdotal verse that has dominated contemporary poetry for decades"). In his essays, Wiman analyzes this preference and advances various reasons why poetry with at least a modicum of formal structure is more meaningful.To be sure, there were a few stretches of writing that bored me as well as passages that were beyond me. But they were fewer and farther between than was the case in the several other works of "poetry criticism" that I have sampled. And scattered throughout the book are observations worth noting, such as the following:* Irish Murdoch said "that there is no such thing as a bad poem because bad poetry simply wasn't poetry." (That is my attitude towards much of the schlock that's on the shelves of the poetry sections in many book stores.)* "It is the beauty of the world that makes us more conscious of death, not the consciousness of death that makes the world more beautiful."* "Great poetry is first of all sound. If a poet has no sense of cadence and form as expressions of feeling, then the limits of his or her accomplishment are quite small."

As a poet and instructor of poetry writing, I was hoping for a book that spoke to me, inspired me, as so many books I've read about poetry have. But the entire first half of the book (mostly written 15-20 years ago) dragged, and it seemed to me that Wiman was speaking more from an academic intellect than a more whole and deeper self.But in the last few chapters, I found some words of wisdom - and the final chapter was not only beautifully written, it was also deeply moving. So I have a mixed reaction to the book. With most books about poetry, I take 3-5 pages of notes. I was 2/3 of the way through this book before I wrote down a word. But then I filled up two pages.The beginning of the book is about Wiman's own life - mildly interesting, but forgettable. In much of the middle section, he discusses individual poets. Unless you have read these poets (I was quite familiar with Millay, Eliot and Walcott and only a few of the others), the pages about them may not hold your interest. I only read the first sentence of each paragraph about some of them.The power of the last chapter for me was in the lyricism of Wiman's prose as related to his rediscovery of faith and connection to his spiritual self. My guess is that his style and tone throughout most of the book would have been different if he had started it in 2005-2006, which is when he wrote the last chapter. I give 5 stars to the last chapter, but really only 3 1/2 to the rest of the book.

At first I thought Wiman was being too tough on some poets, but then he is an accomplished poet in his own right, and some of what he says is refreshing to hear. I appreciate his honesty and believe much of it due to his facing a rare cancer and the restoration of his lost faith. He hits on some very profound subjects, such as the difference between imagination and memory. This is a book to be read slowly, and savored as you encounter lines like, "you know you're not in any real danger so long as what's happening to you still seems to be 'experience.'" He talks about how he needs "dead time" to write poetry and what the time between poems can be like. He concludes that we have to have the patience to wait and we have to know when not to write. He talks about how style should not become completely conscious and why. He says that poetry is lonely and how there are poems possible for us at only particular moments. He believes poetry is mysterious, and prose less mysterious, but also less rewarding. So how do poets survive the silent periods? He agrees with Wilbur that poets need to encounter chaos to write poetry. Read his essays on individual poets and poetry and on our visual culture. This is a book I will return to again and again because it is so thought-provoking. It will also make you want to read more of Wiman's own poetry.