Holy holy holy
This one goes out to all the Li-Young Lee fans out there. If you’re not one, you should look into that ;) Here is a previous post I wrote titled The Hum of the Universe where I quote him, if you’d like to start there. And it’s the time of year you might like reading “From Blossoms.”
This week the thing that I read which kept me Alive (as opposed to just living) was the transcript of an interview between James Shaheen and Li-Young Lee on Tricycle. Like, dig this:
“For me, there’s only three postures of the soul when you’re writing a lyric poem. They can be summed up as “Oh my God,” “Oh my love,” and “Holy, holy, holy.” You know, when I experience something and I feel, “Oh my God,” I mean, I know I have to write about it. When I experience something like, “Oh, my love,” I have to write about it. Or when I see and feel something that inspires in me, “Holy, holy, holy.” Those three are the postures of awe. Adoration, I don’t know who said it, but adoration is the proper attitude of a soul in awe. And it seems to me that the lyric poem is the greatest expression of awe and adoration, turning about one thing, and that thing is unknown. I feel like I live in those three postures all day long.”
So this is what’s getting me through. Thinking about the three postures of awe. Thinking about adoration. And repeating in my head the words, holy holy holy. Also, he talks about the line of a poem being a form of trembling. When you speak a poem, when you speak, “the vocal cords are trembling.”
Poetry is not going away, awe is not going away, trembling is not going away. The holy holy holy is not going away.
I think, I imagine, what will happen next is that the realms will just get further apart. They were always apart, and I don’t know why. Because why do you want to be a human living in this world, and separate yourself from art, and joy, and beauty, and philosophical thought, and the depths of the creative experience. I think back to taking what now seems like a truly wondrous undergrad degree in the humanities, and how the arts were always pitted against the business and science faculties. That was so weird to me. I always craved more cross pollination, people-wise. Which I guess is why I worked in the science library when I was at university doing my English Honours degree. (Which I received with honours, might I add, because what the hell). My co-workers were largely science and engineering students and we had the most interesting conversations.
We get to pick our posture every day. And the thing to do is to remember. You put on your coat, your shoes. Put on your posture of awe, too. Holy holy holy, oml omg.
“The absurd joy par excellence is creation.”
— Nietzsche
I grabbed this quotation from the epigraphs to Clarice Lispector’s A Breath of Life.
If you follow me on the socials, you might have seen my post about my good news. Palimpsest Press has accepted my book Repair Manual for the Soul for publication in 2029. Which seems a way off, and it is, but I think that’s mainly a good thing. I can revise it, maybe even add a bit to it. I have the gift of continuing to stay attentive to what can be repaired. And really three more years of writing in oblivion might be just what I need. But seriously, it’s just the universe telling me there is still a lot left to repair and my job is to report on that from the proper stance holy holy holy.
In the meantime, feel free to keep me afloat by buying a title or two?
Lately I’ve been contemplating the idea of a sabbatical. A sabbatical from the internet, from social media. I will be on a writing retreat for the month of November and so perhaps that will be the trial run.
Our lives are so entwined with the socials yah that it’s hard to step back. I am imagining something like a half sabbatical in an ongoing way. What if we logged out for half the week? A half-sab. Or log out for 4 days a week. You know, just pick three days for it. Maybe you already do this.
So amusingly, I started writing this post earlier in the week. And since then my computer has been in death throes….I suppose I tempted fate with my talk of being glad that there were more things ahead to repair. I hope to be back next week, but if not, you’ll know why :)
