Poetry, Rites of Way OR Engaging with Mind-body-Spirit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Now, I am often asked why I write poetry. While I think of myself as a poet who happens to be gay rather than a gay poet, the gay input to my poetry is especially important to me. Hopefully, gay readers will enjoy relating to it, if only in part, while the less gay-friendly heterosexual reader is invited to put aside any outdated, misleading, and often offensive stereotypes that continue to attach themselves to the whole gay ethic in the minds of the less enlightened.  Much the same can be said of my approach to fiction; I haven't written many novels and none have been bestsellers although they sold well and feedback was mixed but on the whole appreciative; as with my poetry, I have tried to reach a mixed readership, and enjoyed every minute of it.   Anyone interested can read my fiction in serial form on my Fiction in the Subject Field blog; synopses at:

Now, although I enjoy socialising, I am also a very private person. I have never kept a journal because I hate the idea of anyone accessing details of my private life and thoughts when I am no longer around to qualify what I wrote. At the same time, my poems are journal pages of a kind; few are strictly autobiographical, but each and every one turns on the kind of person I am, warts ‘n’ all.

Many of my poems have been inspired by conversations with all sorts of people - men and women, gay and straight alike - who have told me about themselves as this bar, that bus queue…wherever. The subsequent poem is as much their story as mine. At the same time, how I chose to write the poem illustrates my train of thought upon hearing and often relating to what they had to say and mulling it over for hours, weeks, months, and even years. My fiction takes shape in much the same way although I, personally, find poetry both more expansive and inclusive. Any readers interested, may like to visit my fiction blog sometime, details at:

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html

Writing poetry, like any creative process, exercises the inner eye in seeing even what is sometimes considered (by whom?) best overlooked. We all need to see and feel in order to try and understand; every artist wants to share his or her insight, feelings, and subsequent understanding - flawed though it may well be - with others.

Past-present-future, the poetry of yesterday-today-tomorrow, the stuff of dreams and personal space, seeing as through ... whatever.

Oh, and, by the way, I was born on a sloping dead-end street.

POETRY, RITES OF WAY or ENGAGING WITH MIND-BODY-SPIRIT

When this life ceases to be,

my spirit left to feed on eternity,

what will they think of me

who drank my wine at table,

doubted I was even able

to write at all or, at least, as well

as one might who always

kept Mount Parnassus in sight,

despite the English climate?

Oh, I dare say they were right,

but I’ve so enjoyed being a poet,

lapping up all criticism, praise,

scepticism, quips about simplicity,

a serious lack of intellectuality,

how gay-interest poetry undermines

a proud genre’s finer integrity,

compromises the very aesthetic

of its history and spirituality

I've heard it’s a cardinal sin

to lower the tone, let anyone in

on a poem, its place in the arts

intended to impress, access

only partly allowed or its mystery

all but solved, and that way

(surely?) anarchy lies. Whatever,

a poet will always have the edge

on Mr, Mrs, and Ms Average

Although but mortal, mind and body

expect more of the human spirit

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2012

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was mistakenly published under its draft title 'Requiem for a Poet' in A Feeling for the Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]