Useless Poetry

In 13 Ways of Making Poetry a Spiritual Practice, (a title borrowed from Wallace Stevens’ poem  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird) Buddhist and poet Maitreyabandhu urges us to Cultivate Uselessness. I like the idea.

I for one spend too much of my time wondering about what I can achieve with my writing, about how it will be received and if it will be successful -is this poem, story, novel good enough to win a competition, publication – a contract?

Maitryabandhu  admits that  We probably need some success in order to carry on with the “stitching and unstitching” of serious writing  but warns of the dangers of success. The more success we experience the less it satisfies, and the more disappointed we feel by lack of success .

Not seeking success does not however mean that we don’t have to work hard, develop our imagination, read deeply, read well, be open to criticism and disappointment, all of which I am striving to do as I enter the world of poetry writing

I am also finding instinctively that life has become quieter more contemplative perhaps I’ve dropped beneath the racket of thought – the repetitive mental chatter, the worry and flurry – into direct, unmediated sensation. Then the richness of life, rather than the hubbub of thought, will find it’s way into your poems. I hope so – maybe that’s why I’ve given up on Twitter!

Read the whole Maitryabandhu piece here

From – Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

By Wallace Stevens

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-limbs.