Wealth

The great poet makes us feel our own wealth.

                                                     Harold Bloom

 

When I used to do poetry readings I remember, more than once, glancing up and noting someone nodding off. A bit disconcerting but I decided those who attended to catch up on their sleep were, perhaps, my best audience. I consoled myself to imagine my words set into motion their own poem. I have also been on the other end. I wasn’t really sleeping, only being transported to another realm.

To tap into one’s own poem is a gift beyond words. We were all poets at one time. We saw with wonder. We were in the act of making sense of it. Our voice was singular. Our imagination was let loose until the crush of parents, teachers and society muzzled us. After all, creativity can be subversive.

When I say we were all poets, I want to add that many of us still are even if there are no poems to show for it. More important than product is what I would call a poetic sensibility, seeing the world metaphorically so this becomes that; connectivity without end.

By the same humanistic view, I also presume a certain goodness in others. As Wallace Stevens wrote, There is a substance within us that prevails. We are the fruit that comes and goes. Prepare a table for reception while we ripe and ripe even as we also rot and rot. The all of it is the commonwealth.

No, no, I haven’t forgotten that MAGA tribe who traded their autonomy for a pocketful of loathing. The Congregation of the Lost who, conversely to Bloom, met their fears and impotence with impoverished souls.

The wealth Harold Bloom refers to is that inner dimension that enriches us in measureless ways. It is nothing less than the soul being fed. That word wealth is well-traveled. It comes from weal as in commonweal, our well-being; nothing to be monetized. It is also associated with wholeness. What greater good than being touched by a work of art to strike up the music of one’s own composition.

Beyond the verbal dexterity of a great poet is their humanity. Bloom writes that the soul is superior to its knowledge and possesses its own intrinsic wisdom. Receiving the words of Shakespeare, for example, we learn to recognize that gleam of light which flashes across the mind from within. Raise your hand if you hear the mermaids singing; they are singing for you. Now pass it on.

Harold Bloom managed to fall out of favor among academicians for his Eurocentric ways, turning away from diversity. This is a subject for another day. His humanism and love of literature are enough to fill my plate. Could it be that Donald’s incipient reign of terror has unwittingly offered us a paradigm of anti-humanism which can be inverted to serve as a model of soulfulness?

The great poems shepherd us like psalms. Wherever we are standing is a green pasture. There are shadows to be sure; the waters may be turbulent, but we have prepared a way to be still and recognize our own wealth which restores the soul.