SOLiTUDE

desiderata.english


I promised two weeks back to deliver poetry: in fact, today I'm giving more -- both poetry and prose poetry! Last night I wasn't derailed again by Boston Public as I was the previous Saturday night because I clean forgot about it. The flesh was hovering around the idiot box, but the spirit wandereth elsewhere, trying to track down some mates Down Under. Hey, there I go again, digressing ... beg your pardon.

You know what is essentially a poem, that which is delivered in verse. And then what is verse? It's defined as Poetry; stanza of a song or poem; that which is "non-prose". And what is prose? That writing which is in non-poetry forms; opposite of verse. Am I making sense, or is it deja vu along the line of Mack's pix entry that reads:

NOTICE - PUBLIC BAR
OUR PUBLIC BAR IS PRESENTLY
NOT OPEN BECAUSE IT IS
CLOSED MANAGER

Pseudo Mat Skodeng, have a pe-e-ep at www.brandmalaysia.com, April 08, 2005, and Mack Zulkifli observes that it's Sensible enough; I readily second that!

Well, to really get started, Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) has been one of the favourite philosophers I refer to for comtemplative writing. I hold a dog-eared book titled "Walden - Essay on Civil Disobedience" which I treasure, so don't you borrow from me and not return it -- I would act cruel sending you a million-dollar bill of demand (going off tangent again, but I take unlimited liberties in my Sunday columns, be forewarned).

The Walden book-cover features a man in deep thought, as would be the pose all writers -- especially poets -- are won't to do when they want to pose for a cover picture for publication to give an impression he/she is using the brain most of, if not all, the time. Me, I prefer lying down, in tandem with the stance of my mentor, Max Ehrmann, who was reportedly to be doing it very often, lying down I mean, as that posture allows one to look at the stars and comtemplate the mysterious beyond eons light years away, in various hues of black, grey, blue, dark blue, snow white and slight white ... I hope you get my drift?

I also aspire towards the status of Thoreau's writing sometimes -- when his writings in prose attained a quality they read like poetry. Hence, prose poetry -- poetic writing in prose.

Here's a sample, from On Walden Pond:

"I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert."

There are other gifted prose writers whose works also tend towards poetic excellence. I remember Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and D. H. Lawrence. I hope some fifty years from now, those coming after me will point out some of my writing as samples worthy of this classification. I sometimes blow my own trumpet, but writers do have big egoes -- it's not mainly for the almighty dollar they write, although it helps, as you know many of history's famous authors died in poverty, some object, some abject, only their kin who came after them reaped the bounty!

Now a poem on the same subject of SOLiTUDE from Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919):

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.


Compare Wilcox's poem with Thoreau's prose, and I hope readers appreciate the distinctive value of both writings. Such stature, such elegance, one via prose, the other poetry -- "exalted" is the word I have in mind. Me, I'm aspiring towards that state, in tandem with our beloved PM Pak Lah's call to Malaysians to strive towards the "towering Malaysian" status.