Tuesday
I’ve been dilatory in acknowledging the death of W. S. Merwin two weeks ago, but I share today a poem he wrote that offers some good life advice. Although it’s writing advice he received from poet John Berryman when he was young, it extends beyond poetry.
As I apply the poem to my own (non-poetry writing) life, I hear the following: As you go about attempting to do good in the world, don’t judge your actions by their results since, regardless of what you do, you will not know their impact. Therefore, follow your passion and let the rest sort itself out on its own.
It must be a life-affirming passion, of course, not a base one.
I have tried to conduct my marriage, my child rearing, my teaching, my interactions with others, and my reading and writing with such passion. Regarding my blogging, although few things are more evanescent than these daily essays—to borrow from Keats, they are “writ in water”—I spend energy and time on them in the hope that they will enlighten both me and others.
Berryman (through Merwin) tells me that I will die without knowing whether the essays are any good and whether they will last. If I need to be sure, he adds, I should give up writing.
I don’t need to be sure.
From “Berryman”
...as for publishing he advised me
to paper my wall with rejection slips
his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
with the vehemence of his views about poetry
he said the great presence
that permitted everything and transmuted it
in poetry was passion
passion was genius and he praised movement and invention
I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can't
you can't you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don't write
