Finding something creative to say…">Finding something creative to say…
Published December 24, 2009 | 
">Bruce WhealtonHow does a poet find something new and original to say?… something creative? Something that will astonish the reader? I think one idea is to write what is personal – personal experiences and perspectives. Jean Jones said to be honest. I think the “Confessional Poets” were great at this. Confessional poetry involves thoughts, feelings and experiences that are quite personal, certainly honest. In some cases these might be quite unflattering things that the poet is sharing.
This is similar to the idea of what separates a poem from greeting card verse. A greeting card is generic and can be used, applied to an occasion and given to anyone that fits the occasion. For example, a father’s day card could be given to any father, or if not any father, any number of fathers. Sure, not every father’s day card works for anyone and any father, and for that reason we spend time finding “the right one.” However, there is a generic, if not cliché nature to greeting cards. In contrast, if I write a poem about my father, I’m going to be talking about my own unique experience of having known one person in particular. These are very much my own feelings, experiences, thoughts and memories. Maybe others can relate to what I write, and we do hope experience is universal and shared. However, such a poem, if I do it well, or right, expresses something unique; unique about my memories, the relationship, and about my father in particular.
I think this is partially what we seek to publish. I don’t mean specifically, poems about fathers. I mean poems that avoid generalities, cliché, greeting card verse.
Maybe this can be helpful for people to know who might want to get published on Word Salad.
Suicide Note – Poem by Bruce Whealton">Suicide Note – Poem by Bruce Whealton
Published December 24, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonThis is a revision of a poem that I got feedback on lately. So, it’s a new poem. Who knows what it is that people end up remembering most about us.
Suicide Note
To whom it may concern, my readers and friends, As you may have noticed, reading my poems and other writings, I've revealed a great deal about myself and I would have hoped that I'd be better understood, better known by those closest to me and others I've met over the years, or those who've known me through my writing. I don't feel that I've achieved even that. So don't be surprised, as if you did not see this coming - this, my final act. In this, my poem, and my other poems, I hope to take my own unique place among those with whom I share a kinship - poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton who wrote in poetic form, her “Wanting to Die.” Even within my family, there are those that came before me. My auntie Rosie who ended her life quickly with a shotgun and my cousin who hanged herself. So, it's really just an issue of method... which is part of our creative expression. Perhaps, in this final act, I'll find that I have accomplished something for which I'll be remembered. Bruce Whealton Revised poem on December 24th.
A Christmas Carol Observations – Includes Tent Cities by Jean Jones">A Christmas Carol Observations – Includes Tent Cities by Jean Jones
Published December 22, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonI started watching “A Christmas Carol” tonight, the version with Patrick Stewart. It is interesting what I noticed. Scrooge makes a comment, early in the movie, long before he has his change of heart as a result of the ghosts visitations. Scrooge says of his old partner, or as if speaking to his old partner “we thrived on the idleness of others.” It reminds me of that message I heard from a conservative, a story of the Ant and the Grasshopper. The grasshopper is idle and so he isn’t as shrewd as the ant. This is an Aesop’s Fable designed to teach children about the importance of diligence and hard work and other related values. I’m not against diligence and hard work but it is interesting to prosper off the so called “idleness” of others. It’s also interesting to judge others in such a non-forgiving perfectionist way. In the fable the grasshopper went about being merry thinking winter was far off and that he’d be okay. Have we never failed to foresee possible future struggles? Who is so perfect to say that they never made that mistake? In this fable the ant have zero compassion for the grasshopper because supposedly he was working to store up for the winter.
Interestingly, it was found in a survey of children under 12 (I forget the ages of the children surveyed in this study) the reactions of the children were one of hatred, anger or other negative feelings toward the ant who was seen as cruel, mean or in other similarly negative ways. I heard that story about the ant and the grasshopper from a conservative. I don’t know what the person would have thought to learn the results of this study.
It may seem unrelated but I was touched also by the story in the poem by Jean Jones, my friend and co-editor for Word Salad, called “Tent Cities.” In the poem there is such compassion for the unfortunate and empathy that is amazing. I’ll share the poem below, again, as I did recently. The poem shows his effort to connect with and understand what it might be like to be homeless, or to live in a “tent city.” Tent Cities are popping up in the news recently as examples of poverty and the face of or reaction to homelessness in our nation of late. I was moved by the second to last lines, the comment about how we accept things like this and move on.
I was thinking of another message I heard years ago related to me about a message from a rather detestable person, a Rush Limbaugh – gee, I wonder if he would ever get the message of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens? He made a comment about a news story about a woman dying from the cold, a homeless woman. His point that he wanted to relate about the incident was that she chose to not come into a shelter, she chose to stay outside. I’m sure we didn’t hear the whole story. Even if we did, the message was clear. Don’t feel sympathy or concern if a person dies in the cold, or feel like you anything is wrong with anything. When this happens, it’s by choice. So, what can you do? It could never be that any city might not have enough shelter beds for everyone? Impossible, right? Or maybe the person felt unsafe going into that particular shelter because she was raped or otherwise violently assaulted in the shelter. Or any other possible explanations. Rush’s message was clear… don’t worry about things, or imagine what it is like to be out there, homeless, vulnerable, cold, this is their choice. And there is nothing you can do. Or at least no reason for you to wonder what it might be like, as Jean did in his poem. Here is his poem:
Tent Cities
by Jean Jones
I try to imagine living in a tent city, and I can’t.
I keep picturing the cold at night and in the morning but I can’t picture it.
I keep imagining what the sky would look like as it turned to dusk and darkness
how beautiful the sky would turn, from peach to orange to red but I can’t see it.
I keep thinking how it would be like with no toilets, no money, and trying to imagine
where to get food and where to go begging but I can’t conceive it
Every time a man says to me on the street, “Could you give money to a disabled vet,”
or a guy parks next to an intersection with a cardboard sign that says “Will work for food,”
I try to imagine where those guys go when it gets dark. I can’t.
I’ve been to the library when the janitor has had to clean up where a man has defecated on himself
at the library bathroom. I’ve looked for sleeping homeless men that I was told were sleeping drunk by the church
and were defecating on the church lawn. I was told to call the police if they didn’t leave when I asked them to.
I’ve tried to picture the lives of these men. I can’t.
This is taking place in our cities and counties every night, not in some third world country.
It is unbelievable and yet we accept it like finding dog shit on our shoes: we hate it, we wipe
it off our shoes by scraping our shoes on the sidewalk, and we move on.
Suicidally Depressed">Suicidally Depressed
Published December 19, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonIt just hit me – the despair, the emptiness, and the the utter hopelessness. I was thinking of how Anne Sexton put it in her poem, “Wanting to Die,” But suicides have a special language./ Like carpenters they want to know which tools./ They never ask why build.
Those are words that express real meaning and understanding for me, now.
I guess it has something to do with the time of the year. Holidays lately have seemed so empty, lonely and I become more acutely aware of these things. Maybe we become most aware of being alone when we have to be alone for a Holiday like Christmas… maybe we also feel most depressed, if life is depressing, at this time of year. I used to think it was because of something bad that happened around the Christmas and New Years time of year but that time has passed. It just seems like this is such a particularly depressing period, a particularly hopeless time.
I think about how I have been drawn to depressing music, and poems at certain times/periods. I think we as poets and writers recognize that there is something shared in human experience. In my experience, sometimes, when most depressed, I’d read Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton writing about suicide, because they got it… They wrote about experiences that I’ve felt, the way I’ve felt, like now. It is so helpful to know that someone else felt the same way at some point. Or maybe I’d put on music by Pink Floyd. Some musicians, singers and bands have been known to write sad songs but you can really hear the despair in the depressing songs by Pink Floyd. There are others that are able to convey the same tone, or utter desolation and despair in their music, matching the music to the words of the song.
Is this entertainment? Maybe that’s why so many sad songs fail to convey the depths of utter despair, sadness and emptiness. Maybe they are afraid that such raw emotion wouldn’t sell. It’s easy to see why we sometimes want to read or hear such sad/depressing music and poems. One reason, I recognize is to feel that sense of connection; of knowing someone else felt the same way. If that’s so, maybe someone else will be moved by something I’ve written. If it’s sad or depressing, or conveys utter suicidal despair, maybe someone will find comfort in knowing that I can relate, or find some sense of connection in my words.
The Hanged Man – Revised Poem – by Bruce Whealton">The Hanged Man – Revised Poem – by Bruce Whealton
Published December 19, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonHere’s another one that I was getting good feedback on recently from my friend Ryan. He had asked to read a bunch of my poems to get an idea about my poetry.
The Hanged Man
I am the hanged man a noose around my neck swinging back and forth back and forth like the hands on a grandfather's clock tick tock tick tock dangling somewhere between earth and hell... I am death itself, for it's all I know. I am Christ Crucified, for I am one with him, in his suffering and abandonment. Some say suffering is optional but I think it is more a matter of fate... Perhaps, I'm paying the price in some reincarnated life of some past sins which I cannot recall. Perhaps that is why Suffering is just a matter of degrees in this reincarnated life among several reincarnated lives all leading toward some final place in heaven. . . Nothing else makes much sense about this existence... by Bruce Whealton Edited/Revised August 8, 2009 Revised again on December 19, 2009
In the Boat – Revised">In the Boat – Revised
Published December 19, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonMy friend Ryan said he really liked this poem – he wrote “Awesome” on the page when he sent it back to me. It’s just one of those dream-like poems… that seems to have a meaning that maybe even I don’t understand years later. I’m not even sure what is meant by it felt like a premonition in the poem, in the dream. But I’ll keep it there for now.
In The Boat
This time it felt just like a premonition - in the dream, I felt like a ghost - I was there with you transparent to your sight; you looked right through me not seeing me. My love for you keeps these dreams alive. There is something familiar about the place. There by the water we stood yet you did not see me. I watched you enter your sailboat. I tried to call out to you; I was so scared of loosing you. I watched you drift away, fading out of sight. The boat I enter takes me back in time - back to you.
Becoming a Poet – my story continued…">Becoming a Poet – my story continued…
Published December 4, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonHopefully, there are insights to be learned from our personal stories, or at least new inspirations for new poems. I remember when I started to see myself as a poet for the first time. It was late in 1991. I think it wasn’t till I moved to Wilmington, NC in April 92 that I really thought of myself as a poet. Maybe – it’s hard to say now. I had never read my poems to more than 2 people prior to April 1992. I had a mentor named Martin Kirby, that I started visiting and sharing my poetry with him in mid to late 1991. I’d sometimes show up and read to both him and his wife – they had a Sunday tradition of doing that and I was asked to join the tradition, for a while, till I moved.
Interestingly, I moved to Wilmington for a job as technical writer, at Corning. I should say that this job was more technical than creative or literary writing.
It was an interesting time. I was writing about pain, and loss and love that I had for a woman named Celta, who died in a fire. I didn’t know that I’d survive that loss and that the love I had would be a source of comfort or affirmation. I just wanted to escape, back then in 1991. And a part of me didn’t have any hope for living. I was almost suicidal. It really is ironic that I could feel so much pain having known such love. Maybe not, as I lost the source of that love. Maybe it was the love that kept me alive, made me what I am today… even though, all I seemed to know back then was pain.
I did know love though and that I was good – I don’t mean good as in good versus evil (though in that sense, I did know I was a good person) but that I was worthy, lovable, special. I know that sounds quaint but it is important. One cannot erase years of shyness but the positive feelings, dormant though they were, did make a difference. I doubt I would have otherwise shared things about myself, shared my poetry with others. Yes, indeed, that was it. In terms of sharing poetry, it wasn’t a thing I did just for me. I thought it was about sharing, giving.
And I knew that I had value. I had things to share. I wonder how quaint this sounds?
Writing about our personal experiences – even embarrassing ones">Writing about our personal experiences – even embarrassing ones
Published December 4, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonI was at a reading Tuesday, this week and someone told me that my poems that she heard, this night, seemed to have more of a quality of reaching out beyond personal experiences or something to that effect. Granted, she has not been able to read or hear many poems by me. What was ironic was that the poems that I read, which she said had this quality of reaching out to others, were about very personal experiences. I had two poems about shyness. One was about being ignored or the way shy guys seem to be misunderstood – we probably seem like we aren’t interested in others, or we are rude or that we just don’t want to talk, even when that is the farthest from the truth. The other one was about feeling invisible, unnoticed.
It is really embarrassing to be so shy. It’s also true that shyness is about being embarrassed a great deal. I should write more about this.
I also shared my poem entitled, “A Question for Anne” – for Anne Sexton. I state that I understand what she meant when she wrote “To Bedlam and Part Way Back.” I was always fascinated by her story and enjoyed helping others in my work in the psychiatric/mental health field. I think it is fascinating to understand another person and their pain, suffering – well, I mean in my career it was fascinating how we could help people when you could really empathize and understand in that way. It’s too bad for Anne that the healing power of poetry was not enough.
Here’s the poem again, slightly revised just this past week:
A Question For Anne
I know what she meant
when Anne Sexton wrote,
“To Bedlam and Part
Way Back.”
Yet that’s where our stories
diverge. She never made it
all the way back.
While she found the healing power
of poetry,
in her life,
like her contemporary,
Sylvia Plath,
she took her own life.
So, I want to ask you,
Anne,
in that next life
have you finished
your awful rowing
toward God?
Are you there, now?
By Bruce Whealton
November 18, 2009
The Azalea Festival of 92 and so on… a poets thoughts about love and acceptance">The Azalea Festival of 92 and so on… a poets thoughts about love and acceptance
Published December 2, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonSo, here it was the Azalea Festival and it seemed that Lynn was not interested and had no time or interest in me. I would find out later that I was wrong. What I do remember was that at this time, while the idea of loving a person was alien… and all I had know was death – as if that was a desire… it seemed that I was confused. I had dated after Celta died but always wondered “why?” I certainly wasn’t overly moved by whether or not things worked out.
Part of my mind, wanted to just escape. I’d hang out with my roommate. Her name was Donna Bender and she had taken me down town – I admit it, I was thinking of the alcohol. This was 92 but for most of 91 all I knew was the dream-like reality of death.
In some respects that might seem like an exaggeration. I had held down a job for 6 months that certainly made me look responsible. But I certainly had no hope or happiness in anything. In the early months of 91, I wanted to be under the influence so that the ideas of ending this life, taking action, wouldn’t be so hard to carry out. It would be years before the love of Celta would seem like a comfort, many, many years. So, I was a Christian and so suicide didn’t seem so easy an option. The year 91 flowed into 92 like a river of numbness.
So, what had saved my life? and why? Why did I care about a relationship? This might seem bizarre but that’s what was going through my mind. I had no idea what was to follow?
What should I do now? Curse this experience? Curse the loss? Or try to figure out how or why I could love more than I loved Celta? Heck it took me to the end of the first decade of the 21st century to realize this reality?! Some 20 years after her death – honest to God, I would have never admitted to this fact until just recently.
What does this matter? What sense does it make to talk to my mother and have to admit that there never was the love between us ever… that I never would believe that she had the capacity to love us, though her parents did? Why couldn’t they love us? It says in the Bible that this is the kind of thing that is natural between a parent and his/her offspring. It doesn’t change that love is what I’ve known, from persons from God, and given back. I wonder if it is raining as I write this? It feels like it should be.
About our Passions">About our Passions
Published December 2, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonThis is about one person really! You won’t know the truth about this, until you read the full contents of this. You will read on and think this is about Celta, or my grandparents but there is more… read on…
I’ve realized that persons like us have great passions. Love! I don’t know why there must be these different Christian faiths and that others must doubt the love within us all. I guess it is like what my mother said to me recently. “I don’t know you, Bruce.” It hurt me at first but it was the truth. My grandparents knew me. My sister and brother knew me for a while… that was growing up. I’d like to think that my grandparents knew me longer but they died too soon or didn’t the change. I ‘d like to say my sister knew me. Heck, I tried to give so much of my love or show her my love.
I do know that my mother never did know me though. Or love me. I know that. We say the “I love you” over and over but we cannot make it true. We say it because we want it to be true. But it isn’t.
I did love my grandparents on both sides of the family. In honestly, my maternal grandparents were closer, physically, so I must admit that I seemed to possess more of that which we call love. Maybe though, I did come to love my paternal grandparents equal to my love for my maternal grandparents if such things can happen after death, the death of my maternal grandparents.
It is important to note, though that nothing compares to the love I felt for Celta. Let me be clear about that. I mean up to that point in my life, I had never felt love anywhere near equal to that. Love!!!! Wow, what a concept. I won’t try to write a poem about this. It would be cliche. It would minimize things to put it into words. I was only 24 when I fell in-love with Celta. It was like I had never glimpsed love – at all – prior to this. What I felt for my grandparents didn’t even compare – I mean that. It didn’t compare. Much like my love for my parents didn’t compare to my love for my maternal grandparents.
It would be cruel to reveal this to my parents that I didn’t feel anything for them, not ever, and to this day, though I say I love them and want to love them, I’m not sure that I do. I did love my grandparents, though relative to Celta, it might seem that I didn’t love them. I tried to protect Celta.
Someone understood that once, recently. I told about how I had kept things about Celta from my parents. I felt my parents were judgmental and not very accepting. Celta had anorexia, and wasn’t so perfect. I lived with my parents, not my grandparents, when I knew Celta. So, I didn’t talk about Celta. I didn’t know how I could or would handle the critical comments about Celta from my family – my parents. Celta has remained a part of me since her death, on New Years day of 1991.
How is it that a parents cannot feel love for their son? How is it that for the most part until Celta, Ididn’t know love? Sure there were the grandparents, but my maternal grandparents died too soon and my paternal grandparents were far way. So, then, after Celta died, I wanted to die! That was in 1991. I didn’t think I could find love. However, I did know something. I had been loved by Celta. I was special, deserving of love.
Let me continue. Let me say something. Let me say something with meaning. I did love my grandparents. I did love Celta in a profoundly different way… a profoundly greater way. In the years shortly after 91, 92 or 93, to care about another person, well, I’d I’ve to come to fall in-love in a more profound way. Otherwise, I’d feel nothing… I’d see others but feeling nothing, after Celta’s death on New Years day of 1991.
Then something happened. What I will say next is absolutely and totally meaningless if one does not absorb the reality of what I said previously. To not understand my Love for Celta during 1989, 90, and into 92, would be to miss the complete meaning of this. Before Celta died, we agreed on everything. We lived almost as one person. I actually had a part of me believing in some sort of psychic connection between us, as if she would just feel what I felt about something and totally embrace that and vice versa. That’s perfect love! That’s how perfect relations should be, right? Is it possible, that I could love after 1991? I’d have to love and that was unthinkable and unspeakable?
But I did. I’d write the words, “Wow”, but fear that they would not be appreciated. While I’ve existed for over 40 years and been a passionate person, other than my grandparents, reciprocal has been rare, or rather, unknown other than involving two persons. It was July of 1992 when I met Lynn. The suicidal tendencies of 91 had stopped in 92 leaving me just numb. To feel anything for anyone, was bizarre. Martin Kirby told me that my love of Celta was (though he didn’t use the words Legendary) such that it would take me 10 years to write about that and the loss. He didn’t suggest that I’d love again or that such things were even possible. It, wasn’t on my mind at the time – as God is my witness, it wasn’t. So, what was I to do for 10 years – exist only so I could write poems about love and loss of Celta?
I moved to Wilmington and became poet. And what more shall I say? And I fell in-love?! Such a meaningless understatement! It surely needs explanation. How could a man who was not loved by his parents feel, express or be loved?!
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