Avant-Edge: Innocence and Experience

Happy Poetry Month,

This is my first time writing a Challenge for the Imaginary Garden - I never though I would be so happy to be a Toad. I do tend to go on, and it is a Thursday, so feel free to skip my rambling and go to the last paragraph where the actual challenge is.

My history with poetry goes back to my teen years, however, I drifted away from it for twenty years and just started writing actively again in the last two years. For me poetry is a form of expression that is neither conversation nor prose - it lives deep down inside us where passion dominates over intellect. 

I was 13 years old in 1979 - the year that Disco simultaneously peaked and died. My uncle, who was more of an older brother, confiscated my collection of records which was anchored by the Bee Gees and the Village People and replaced it with The Who, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. It had a significant impact on me. The music and lyrics started a slow rumble inside of me that was to gather strength and speed over the next few years. I embraced the rebelliousness and teenage angst that these artists represented. 

I enrolled in my first year of college in the early 80's amidst a haze of big hair and bong smoke. I was late in choosing my courses and barely made the cut off for registration. As punishment I was forced to take whatever courses that had vacancies. Among them was "Romantic and Victorian Literature". The professor was a shaggy, wild-eyed hippy who would get so excited during his lectures he would spray the front row with spit.  

It was a particular group of Romantics that caught my attention: William Blake, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth and Percy Shelley and Mary Shelley. I imagined them all hanging out in some castle in some sort of decadent literary think tank - producing some of the greatest poetic and literary work in history. 

William Blake: The Ancient of Days, 1794
Source: WebMuseum

I focused my entire semester on this group of iconoclasts. As far as I could tell they were the 19th century equivalent to Keith Richards throwing a television through a penthouse window and Pete Townsend smashing his guitar on stage. That slow rumble that I felt as a young teen was reawakened. It was more than their degenerate behaviour that caught my attention - there was a brilliance to their words that came from an intense and uncensored passion.  They were able to put form and structure to feelings and emotions I had but couldn't articulate. 

The theme for my Challenges is Avant-garde Poetry - poets who pushed the political, social and literary boundaries of their time. Throughout history there have alway been those that break away from the pack and push the boundaries. When we think of Avant-garde poetry, names like Allen Ginsberg, E.E. Cummings, Ezra Pound and Williams Carlos Williams come to mind; however, for the purpose of this challenge I am using it as a generic term that refers to artists the push the boundaries and puts the Romantics, along with countless other innovative and creative minds throughout history, in this class.  (Also I was able to use my name in the title "Avant-Edge"- a true sign of humility)

"The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Many artists have aligned themselves with the avant-garde movement and still continue to do so, tracing a history from Dada through the Situationists to postmodern artists such as the Language poets around 1981." [Wikipedia]

William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" dives into the opposing forces and rite of passage we all travel. The greatest example of this is the two poems written as thesis and antithesis "The Lamb" and "The Tyger" (what would be the synthesis?)

The Lamb

Little Lamb who made thee

Dost thou know who made thee

Gave thee life & bid thee feed.

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice ...

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes!

On what wings dare he aspire!

What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

Full versions of The Tyger and The Lamb here

When I started writing poetry again it awakened something in me that I had forgotten about. That feeling so deep and intimate and intense that it lies just on the Edge of expression. That low distant rumble that reminds me why life is worth fighting for.

The Who: Behind Blue Eyes

Heart - Crazy on You

Intense emotion is at the heart of the Romantic Movement - as shown in the stark images and dichotomy of the Lamb and the Tyger. In my opinion this is what poetry does best - although admittedly not exclusively (Red Wheel Barrow anyone??). For today's Challenge I am asking you to find something you are passionate about to inspire you. 

• Who or what first inspired you to write poetry? 
• What is the itch that only poetry can scratch? 
• What was the first poem you read or song you heard that evoked feelings so strong it hurt? 
• What emotions do you have that conversation and prose cannot express?

Usually we like to see original work in the Garden so let's see whatcha got - and don't be afraid to have fun with this.

Best Sam Edge