{"id":127663,"date":"2018-07-19T13:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-07-19T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=127663"},"modified":"2018-07-26T16:03:13","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T20:03:13","slug":"poetry-rx-i-loved-my-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/07\/19\/poetry-rx-i-loved-my-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Rx: I Loved My Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our column Poetry Rx<\/a>, readers\u00a0write in<\/a>\u00a0with a specific emotion and our resident poets\u2014Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz\u2014take turns prescribing the perfect poems to match. This week,\u00a0Claire Schwartz is on the line.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u00a9 Ellis Rosen<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Poets,<\/em><\/p>\n

What do you do when the person you thought would be your best friend forever and ever and ever no longer feels the same way? Or perhaps never even did? Is it just time to move on? What do you when you’ve promised yourself, and her, that you would love her forever and ever, no matter what? Was that a ridiculous promise?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/em>
\nLost<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Lost,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry that you\u2019re experiencing this heartbreak. It is both an exquisiteness and a challenge that friendship is not governed by the regulation of other relationships. Friendship is not afforded the same social (or legal) recognition as blood ties or romantic partnerships. How we love our friends has few rules, and that means we get to be gorgeously creative with that love. It also means that how we work through conflict\u2014how and if and when friendships end\u2014has few models. In my experience, this confusion has made the end of close friendships all the more painful. For you, \u201cPoem\u201d by Langston Hughes, which cuts through the haze to say it plain:<\/p>\n

I loved my friend.
\nHe went away from me.
\nThere\u2019s nothing more to say.
\nThe poem ends,
\nSoft as it began\u2014
\nI loved my friend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

I memorized this poem the first time I read it. It lives in my body as completely as heartbreak. Its simplicity feels incontrovertible: \u201cI loved my friend \/ He went away from me.\u201d Its title\u2014simply, \u201cPoem\u201d\u2014reminds me how pain spreads. What other story, in this moment of heartbreak, could a poem tell? The tiny form of this poem met the formlessness of my grief\u2014it offered me something to hold so that I was less held by my own hurt. I hope it offers you some relief, too.<\/p>\n

You promised to be her friend forever. Sometimes forever isn\u2019t a measure of time. When you made that forever-promise, you lived in a moment so full it offered you a perch to glimpse the rest of your lives. That is a gift. But, as James Baldwin writes: \u201cFor nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever\u2026\u201d Things change. Change is a condition of loss. It is also a condition of growth. You deserve to pour into those who would pour into you, to carry forward your capacity to love towards those who will love you well back.<\/p>\n

\u2014CS<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Poets,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I need a poem for courage. I have ambitions to become a great artist, but I am afraid that my art will not be well-received. The thought of that mortally wounds me and sometimes prevents me from putting my work out there. I have an intense fear of failure, and I know I need to get over that in order to get anywhere. Do you have a poem that speaks to overcoming your deepest fears and being brave enough to bare your vulnerable side to the world?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\n<\/em>Fearing Failure<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Fearing Failure,<\/p>\n

I do have a poem I\u2019d like to share with you. It\u2019s not a poem of courage, but it is a poem of purpose. Elizabeth Alexander\u2014who, as well as being a magnificent poet, was also my beloved professor\u2014taught me that fear can be a form of ego because, like hubris or arrogance, fear amplifies the size of the self. It puts the self between the self and the task at hand. Fear diminishes focus. For you, Elizabeth Alexander\u2019s \u201cArs Poetica #100: I Believe<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n

Poetry (and now my voice is rising)<\/p>\n

is not all love, love, love,
\nand I\u2019m sorry the dog died<\/p>\n

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
\nis the human voice,
\nand are we not of interest to each other?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love the ars poetica\u2014a poem that makes a claim about what poetry does\u2014because it dares to articulate its purpose, which is to say: it risks failure. But failure focuses on the self. Purpose, on the other hand, reminds you that your art connects you to something greater. With purpose, the work, not the self, is the site of your attention.<\/p>\n

You write that you want \u201cto become a great artist.\u201d What pressure! History is brimming with unrecognized greatness. You can\u2019t control your reception. Instead of thinking about how your work will serve your reputation, think about how you can serve the work. Aim to make great art. What defines greatness is not what the world says, but how well your art serves what you believe. I read Alexander\u2019s \u201cmy voice is rising\u201d foremost as a description of clarity, and only second of volume. It shows me something about what I want to serve. Ask yourself: \u201cWhat do I believe? How can my work serve that?\u201d The why <\/em>of your art will sustain your making.<\/p>\n

\u2014CS<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Dear Poets,<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Life has gone astray and I am considering faith again in its many forms. I identify as nonbinary, and I’m having trouble reconciling the validity of any binary. I feel a reluctance to believe in something because it is inherently good or bad, but I want to have faith in something. How do you define faith? Can you point me to a faith-defining poem?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\n<\/em>Seeker<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Seeker,<\/p>\n

If we understand something to be only good or only bad\u2014only one thing and definitively not that other thing\u2014our belief in that thing will quickly crumble. Or, more dangerously, we will wish to harm anything that threatens to expose the binary\u2019s fallacy. A stable faith can\u2019t be found in evangelical certainty. Faith is what steadies you to move into the unknown.<\/p>\n

I want to offer you Kevin Young\u2019s \u201cObsequies\u201d from his gorgeous collection The Book of Hours<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

doubt keeps a kind
\nof faith, is belief
\nwithout a word<\/p>\n

for what<\/p>\n

it knows\u2014plenty
\nfor what we don\u2019t<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love this conception of faith as loyalty to doubt, this reminder of the entanglement between believing and not knowing.<\/p>\n

Poetry is faith work for me, a practice of being with the unknown. As C. D. Wright writes<\/a>: \u201c[Poetry postulates] an inquiry extended along the lengths of the lines of knowing and beyond the tips of the known.\u201d In poems, the end of each line casts me into space. When I come back to meaning, I come back slightly estranged from what I knew before, open(ed) to another way. The nonbinary\u2014the thing that misaligns you from uncomplicated belief\u2014may be precisely what leads you to wonder. Young writes:<\/p>\n

at night I count
\nnot the stars
\nbut the dark<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I think here is one definition of faith: that disjuncture between our tools for understanding and that which we give our attention. Attention is faith\u2019s form. It grants that there might be something worthy there.<\/p>\n

You already have faith. Your seeking is its trace. What you need now is a ritual\u2014reading, writing, running, drawing, cooking\u2014that can give form to it and move you deeper into the seeking you\u2019ve already begun.<\/p>\n

\u2014CS<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Want more? Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Poetry Rx<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i>Need a poem? Write to us<\/a>! Next week, Kaveh Akbar will be answering questions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Claire Schwartz is the author of\u00a0<\/em>bound\u00a0(Button Poetry, 2018)<\/em>. Her poetry has appeared in\u00a0<\/em>Apogee,<\/em>\u00a0Bennington Review,<\/em>\u00a0The\u00a0Massachusetts Review, and\u00a0<\/em>Prairie Schooner, and her essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in\u00a0<\/em>The\u00a0Iowa Review,<\/em>\u00a0Los Angeles Review of Books,<\/em>\u00a0Virginia Quarterly Review,<\/em>\u00a0and elsewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our column Poetry Rx, readers\u00a0write in\u00a0with a specific emotion and our resident poets\u2014Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz\u2014take turns prescribing the perfect poems to match. This week,\u00a0Claire Schwartz is on the line.     Dear Poets, What do you do when the person you thought would be your best friend forever and ever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33114],"tags":[21750,34747,28084,34746,25890,58,1862,3296,34749,3539,34748],"class_list":["post-127663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-rx","tag-ars-poetica","tag-ars-poetica-100","tag-courage","tag-elizabeth-alexander","tag-faith","tag-friend-breakup","tag-kevin-young","tag-langston-hughes","tag-obsequies","tag-poem","tag-the-book-of-hours"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPoetry Rx: I Loved My Friend<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Poems for the heartbreak of friendship, for finding faith, and for not letting your fear of failure stop you from writing.\" \/>\n<meta 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