The Schizophrenic Diatribes

[Wraxtiorre]

Knowing in advance that these will be the most perplexing poems in the
whole collection, I thought I should go ahead and start the
discussion. Okay, so maybe not Schizo Diatribe 4, it's a bit too
literal and direct. But it is worth noting that I put the whole poem
in dialogue-quotes! Schizo Diatribes 8 and 9 are also pretty
understandable, but at least they remain faithful to the structural
tradition.

[Wraxtiorre]

I made some comments about the Schizophrenic Diatribes in the Preface,
but I didn't make it clear what I was pointing out. It just struck me
as difficult to imagine that the same mind that produced the messy
meaningfulness of the first three poems could be the same mind that
produced the tidy expressions of seven, eight and nine. It has always
been obvious to me that there are things one cannot do without the
experience or training required to be competent at something--in this
case poetry. But it feels kinda weird to have to admit that this
incapability also runs in reverse. Try as I might, I couldn't
replicate the messy meaningfulness of the first three poems. It is as
though the training that I put myself through to learn how to write
poetry took away the rough expressions of my youth--kinda like the
story of Enkidu in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Is it possible that the
oldest piece of writing known to humankind was a warning that I should
have taken to heart?

Another thing that I recall--and I wish I could have included the
letters in the book--was that my awareness of the thick layers of
meaning in some of my early poems (notably the Schizophrenic
Diatribes) grew with my awareness that another person was reading
them. As I described it in those letters, "I read the poems through
what I presumed to be your eyes." I was always aware that I couldn't
borrow another person's eyes, or 'know' what they were thinking while
they read my poems, but imagination can be powerfully effective if
used properly--I think that too many people are afraid to rely on
their imaginations, mostly because they are afraid to risk blurring
the line between factuality and fiction. I have never been afraid to
blur that line, since I have always been clear on where the line is
drawn--it is, however, frustratingly been unclear to my readers that I
know where the line is drawn. But sometimes, you just have to play in
the yard. In my youth, I also knew that I could say things that I did
not yet understand, and that I would understand them later--or perhaps
they would be explained to me later by someone else. But that someone
else never came along, or more truthfully, I never allowed anyone else
to read those poems. Eventually, I either decided to share those
poems with somebody close to me, or I decided to read them myself
anticipating the assumed reactions of somebody close to me--somebody
whose thoughts and beliefs I assumed I could claim to know or
understand. I sent that person a letter describing my responses to my
own poetry through "what I presumed to be your eyes." Yep, I have an
elaborate analysis of the first Schizophrenic Diatribes in one letter,
and a rather pointed assessment of the last three in another letter.
But it is always dangerous to act on assumptions. Most people say
that it is wrong to make them, but the only real danger is in acting
according to assumptions. To some extent, intuitiveness is nothing
more than the ability to judge the accuracy of assumptions.

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