Dear Poetry & Death: Maybe a true image lets us touch that holy space between two worlds, that elusive opening between the world you and I now share, and whatever else exists beyond it

Lit Salon on the paradoxical connection between poetry and death + Jane Hirshfield on the art of the image + how words both heighten and soften our sense of aloneness

1. Wouldn’t you know it, now Z has the flu. Argh, sigh. Send funny jokes and cute animal pics for us all, please.

2. As mentioned last week, we have two beautiful classes starting soon at Elephant Rock, with just a couple spots in the hands-on 6-week Scaffolding Your Manuscript course with the incomparable Jill Swenson (starts Jan 21), and a few still for Pleasure Portals taught by the wonderful Arya Samuelson, who designed this curriculum to “source inspiration from pleasure” (which we all need more of this year and it ties in well with some of our recent desire writing in the Story Challenge!). You can find Elephant Rock’s full roster of offerings here.

3. As for our next Writing in the Dark seasonal intensive, I am so excited to bring you The Visceral Self starting in April, a deep dive into embodied writing—that is, writing from, into, and through the body, writing out the stories stored there, rather than simply writing around things. We’ll pair specific yin yoga poses and mediation, close readings of poems and prose excerpts, and structured writing exercises for an intentionally deep language- and body-based journey through the chakras to unearth the images and words that underlie our truths (all genres). More info to come, but I know we’ll be offering Voice Memo meditations, candlelight sessions on Zoom, and other guided experiences with this curriculum. WITD seasonal intensives are open to all paid subscribers (with substantial portions of the craft essays free to all, and the interactive Voice/Video and Live on Zoom Salons for full-access members (Substack’s “founding member” subscription). You can manage your subscription any time here—and I hope you will join us. This one will open worlds with words. Oh, and if you would like, you can donate a s subscription to someone who needs one here, or give a gift here, and your person will have plenty of time to learn their way around Writing in the Dark before the seasonal intensive starts.

Lit Salon

Dear Jeannine,

I know you’ve quoted Dorianne Laux before—you know her line, “all poetry is preparation for death.”  And I guess since you quote this, you probably believe it, at least to some degree.

But why?

I’m asking not because I disagree. I don’t disagree, at all! This idea actually resonates with me— but I don’t fully understand the reasons why. And that’s why I’m writing to you know. It feels true that poetry and death are connected—but it also feels paradoxical, because poetry is so life-giving.

I would love to hear you say more about this, if you ever have time.

Love,

Poetry & Death

Dear Poetry & Death,

I will try my best to answer this beautiful question, and I have a few treats for you as part of that answer, including two not-poems that rafted me through a dangerous time in my life, and a beautiful short poem from Jane Kenyon that, in a certain way, answers your question all by itself.

Poetry can often do that.

You see, about the concept of poetic image, the incomparable Jane Hirshfield said this in her 1997 collection, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry:

The deepest of image’s meanings is its recognition of our continuity with the rest of existence: within a good image, outer and subjective worlds illuminate one another, break bread together, converse. In this way, image increases both vision and what is seen. Keeping one foot braced in the physical and the other in the realm of inner experience, image enlivens both.

And, in thinking further on this, I’ve come to realize that it stands to reason—my reason, anyway—that if image does this for us, that is, if image allows us to touch a certain holy space that hovers between two worlds (in Hirshfield’s argument, the physical world and the world of inner experience), then maybe it can also allow us to touch that space suspended between two other worlds. That is, this world, the one you and I now share, and whatever else exists beyond it.

In other words, life and death?

Thankfully, I have never wanted to end my own life, and I am very grateful for this, because I am a