{"id":128548,"date":"2018-08-16T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T13:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=128548"},"modified":"2018-08-16T15:19:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T19:19:10","slug":"poetry-rx-nevertheless-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/08\/16\/poetry-rx-nevertheless-live\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Rx: Nevertheless, Live"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our column Poetry Rx, 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><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

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

 <\/p>\n

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

Is there a word for the feeling when you know the wise thing to do, but you, always a fool, do the opposite? I wish I knew the word\u2014I would have said it when this boy slept a night by my side. I would have said it when I first lost him, and then six months later, he came back for me. I would have said it, even if only a whisper, when I fell for him all over again, even harder than before. And now I would repeat it to myself, like a benediction, as I face the possibility of him drifting away.<\/em><\/p>\n

That is the feeling for which I need a poem. The feeling when you know that he\u2019s going to leave, and you\u2019re remembering how hard it was to lose him the first time, and this time you\u2019re in deeper, and you know you should cut it off now to reduce the heartache a little, but you foolishly continue to hope. The feeling every lover has, before sadness makes them wise.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/em>
\n A Hopeful Fool<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Hopeful Fool,<\/p>\n

I love your letter. What you\u2019re seeking\u2014a word for a feeling you know but have no language for\u2014gets exactly at one reason I hold poems close: not necessarily to choose differently but to experience differently. For you, Mary Szybist\u2019s \u201cThe Troubadours Etc<\/a>.\u201d:<\/p>\n

Just for this evening, let\u2019s not mock them.
\nNot their curtsies or cross-garters
\nor ever-recurring pepper trees in their gardens
\npromising, promising.
\nAt least they had ideas about love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think one word for what you describe is the one you use: hope<\/em>.\u00a0But hope\u2019s wisdom buckles when the vision it was pinned to dissipates. So here is a sturdier word: faith<\/em>.\u00a0Faith\u2019s intelligence is not bound to the outcome of any single situation; faith is something surer that you build when you choose the not-knowing. Faith marks an interior constitution, a way of being that says more about the self than it says about any external event. \u201cAt least they had ideas about love.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sadness is not the only province of your wisdom. There is also the intelligence of trying and the courage of making yourself vulnerable to the unlikeliness of being held because the possibility of being held is so beautiful. Listening to your instinct is real and crucial. But that is already a wisdom you recognize. So I give you Szybist\u2019s poem as a reminder that there\u2019s also a brightness\u2014an intelligence\u2014to surrender.<\/p>\n

The Puritans thought that we are granted the ability to love
\nonly through miracle,
\nbut the troubadours knew how to burn themselves through,
\nhow to make themselves shrines to their own longing.
\nThe spectacular was never behind them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What a self you\u2019re building when you see even a flicker of possibility and walk toward it. You get to honor that impulse too.<\/p>\n

\u2014CS<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

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

I have a parent who has a degenerative disease and will be getting sicker and sicker over the next years; ultimately, it will be fatal. Not a super sunny situation, but I\u2019d love a poem for it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Best,
\n<\/em>Living with Dying<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Living with Dying,<\/p>\n

A few years ago, I heard the poet Solmaz Sharif read. Afterward, someone asked about joy. Sharif responded: \u201cSometimes I think there\u2019s not enough joy in my poems. But then I think there\u2019s an aliveness I feel when I\u2019m grieving that\u2019s kin to joy.\u201d And she told this story: Speaking to a group, the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh instructed audience members to give the person next to them a hug. People complied, reluctantly, awkwardly. Then Thich Nhat Hanh reissued the instruction, slightly modified: \u201cTurn to the person next to you. Give them a hug with the knowledge that you both will die.\u201d Now the embraces brimmed with care. The action didn\u2019t change, but the imminent awareness of death altered its quality.<\/p>\n

Degenerative illnesses are difficult for so many reasons. One reason, I think, is that even the name of that category sharpens the sense of living as vector toward dying. Faced with the magnitude of what is coming, what else is there? For you, a poem that, like Thich Nhat Hanh\u2019s wisdom, faces the hovering awareness of death and replies, So much else, especially now: Jane Kenyon\u2019s \u201cOtherwise<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

I got out of bed
\non two strong legs.
\nIt might have been
\notherwise. I ate
\ncereal, sweet
\nmilk, ripe, flawless
\npeach. It might
\nhave been otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kenyon wrote this poem shortly before her death from leukemia at the age of forty-seven. In the poem\u2019s final lines, the roomier subjunctive shifts, replaced by the sureness of a future tense:<\/p>\n

I slept in a bed
\nin a room with paintings
\non the walls, and
\nplanned another day
\njust like this day.
\nBut one day, I know,
\nit will be otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What will come does not undo what is; rather, it polishes the daily miracle. To sleep in a room with paintings! To be with the one you love! These are not flashy false promises. What Kenyon marks instead is that our attention to the present grants us a temporary dwelling space. And after all, what else is there?<\/p>\n

I am so sorry that you and your parent are experiencing this illness. I hope, in its persistent awareness of that \u201cotherwise,\u201d Kenyon\u2019s poem offers you, if not solace, a kind of respite. There is the possibility of a fuller presence alongside the difficult truths.<\/p>\n

\u2014CS<\/p>\n

*\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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

I am at a crossroads in my life. I finished college not long ago and am now looking for a first job. This of course means setting foot in the land of the adults, a land with an infinite amount of possibilities but also responsibilities\u2014and it\u2019s the latter that has my anxiety skyrocketing. I am on a precipice with the future below me, and I know I just need to jump and probably will end up on my feet, but doubts and anxiety keep me from taking the step. Any poems that can inspire me to jump into the void of possibilities?<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you,
\n<\/em>Seeking Courage<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Seeking Courage,<\/p>\n

Sometimes, when I\u2019m feeling overwhelmed by a single large task, I try to clear away all of the little things. I clean the apartment, reply to emails I\u2019ve been avoiding, run errands I\u2019ve been putting off. I tell myself that if I just make the proper space, I\u2019ll be able to turn my best attention to the thing that really matters. Inevitably, life swells to fill the space I\u2019ve cleared, and what I pretended was necessary preparation is actually just elaborate procrastination. There will always be more cleaning, more emails, more errands. What I mean is: there will always be a reason not to try the thing that scares you with how much it matters. But you hold life at arm\u2019s length forever. I hear in your letter that you want to dive into yours headfirst. For you, a poem that helps me take that plunge\u2014Gwendolyn Brooks\u2019s \u201cThe Second Sermon on the Warpland<\/a>\u201d: \u201cThis is the urgency: Live! \/ and have your blooming in the noise of the whirlwind.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019re right. Possibility brings with it responsibility. The thing about possibility, though, is that turning away from it doesn\u2019t make it less true; turning away only makes it less full. The possibility you are facing is the possibility of filling your life to its fullest. What a beautiful thing to feel responsible to, to feel responsible among. \u201cIn the wild weed \/ she is a citizen, \/ and is a moment of highest quality; admirable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trying is no guarantee of success, but working at something you love is a guarantee of expanding your capacity to love. You don\u2019t have to resolve your anxiety or suppress your doubt. You just have to move toward what you love in the midst of all that is true. Let that be the truest thing. \u201cNevertheless, live. \/ Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014CS<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Want more? Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Poetry Rx<\/a>.\u00a0Need your own poem?\u00a0Write to us<\/a>!<\/i><\/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, Is there a word for the feeling when you know the wise thing to do, but you, […]<\/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":[7421,18994,13343,35070,35069,35071],"class_list":["post-128548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-rx","tag-gwendolyn-brooks","tag-jane-kenyon","tag-mary-szybist","tag-otherwise","tag-the-second-sermon-on-the-warpland","tag-the-troubadours-etc"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPoetry Rx: Nevertheless, Live by Claire Schwartz<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Poems for loving even when you know you\u2019ll get hurt, for loved ones dying of a degenerative disease, and for overcoming the fear of too many possibilities.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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