Episode 14

why poems/where the change begins

Why we’re doing poetry right now, and not prose....

Transcript
Leela Sinha:

Hi, everyone. It's been a minute since I've just

Leela Sinha:

spoken to you. I tried to record a poem about why we're having

Leela Sinha:

poems now. But it didn't really work out. So let me see if I can

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say what I need to say and not get sidetracked by some weird

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element of my childhood. Sometimes there are things you

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can't say in prose. And for me, that's most things, most

Leela Sinha:

feelings. The more important it is, the harder it is to put

Leela Sinha:

straight into sentences and periods and paragraphs. The

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first time I remember getting praise for poetry, I was writing

Leela Sinha:

about friendship, and it was fourth grade, and Mrs. Litvin

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who had seen a lot and been through a lot already by the

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time she was a soft, round gray-haired lady teaching in the

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suburbs of New York. And she said that it was beautiful. And

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she put it on the wall. I remember that it was Mrs.

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Litvin. And not Mrs. Gus from third grade. Because I remember

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where that yellow piece of paper- you know, that

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rough-draft, blue lined, newsprint-y paper that we used

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when we weren't writing the real thing yet. I remember where that

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yellow piece of paper went on the wall to the left of the

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classroom door just as you walked in. It was a haiku. They

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were trying to introduce us to poetry forms. This is back in

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the day when they thought that was an important thing to teach.

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I wish they still thought that was an important thing to teach.

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But I've never liked poetry forms. But I like the way that

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poetry allowed spaces for the poet and the poem and the reader

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to interact. It wasn't so pushed, it wasn't so rushed. It

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wasn't so directive as prose. I have a lot, as you know, a very,

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a lot of very definite opinions. But I also think that I am only

Leela Sinha:

one carrier of opinions and ideas and possibilities. And so

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I'd rather put what I think in front of you as a sort of a

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buffet or even like, you know, one of those restaurants where

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you go and you pick out the ingredients and you give them to

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the chef, like pick out some ingredients, pick out some ideas

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from what I'm saying. If you can't figure out how what I

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said, has to do with business, I want that tangle in your brain

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to be generative. I want the tangle in your brain to be

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spacious. I want it to wander around in the crevices between

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dropoffs and pickups and groceries and doctor's

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appointments. I want it to eat popcorn in the back left hand

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corner while you're watching that show that you love and

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watch with you and comment. I'm less interested in anybody

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picking up my ideas wholesale than I am in what happens when

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they become seasonings, or seeds. Mustard seeds, foxtails-

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I know we don't like foxtails, but also, I'm sitting next to

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foxtails. Sometimes I feel like clear directive prose is exactly

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what we need. But more often than that, we have so much

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clearer directive prose around us. And then so much

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insidious... something. That thing that some marketers do

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some of the time, where they create a gap that you naturally

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fall into because of the way that our brains work. And then

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they act like it was your choice, which sort of was, but

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that's not a thing I would call consent. So first, I want you to

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consent. I want you to consent to play with me in these ways.

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And then I want you to roll it around your mouth on your

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tongue, to kick it down the road like a can or a soccer ball, to

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weave or knit or embroider it into something and see if you'd

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like to put it together with great long basting stitches; to

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dig your thumbs in and see if there's a vessel in that lump of

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mud. It's art, I want it to become part of the art of your

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life. And I think prose is awkward and clumsy for that. Not

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always,

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I think there's a place for prose. And there's beautifully

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crafted prose out there, my god. But I like the uncertainty of

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poetry. I like the ambiguity of poetry. I like the way that

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images and pieces of your life that feel completely unrelated

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can overlap and run together. Because that makes it easier for

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pieces of my life to overlap and run together with pieces of your

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life, and pieces of my thinking to overlap and run together with

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pieces of your thinking, and vice versa. I want your thinking

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to overlap and run together with mine. I want to have places and

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ways and structures that that can happen. And I'm not sure

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that those places and ways and structures are necessarily are

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even usually encased in the structure of prose. Language is

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an incredible tool. And they always told me I had to learn

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the rules before I could break them. But I only know the rules

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intuitively and I break them the same way. And I know that

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irritates people. But poetry is also the first place where I had

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to learn not to mind that poetry, and specifically my

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poetry, is not for everyone. So I'll keep doing prose. I will

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come back to it. I know myself, I circle through these things, I

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cycle around; but not just prose and not even necessarily

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predominantly prose. Sometimes I want the poems to work in a way

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that you don't know what hit you, and you're not sure how to

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feel about it. Sometimes I just want a gut punch because I want

Leela Sinha:

the world, because the world is such a place right now.

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Sometimes I want a snippet of beauty. And sometimes I want a

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complete sentence. So that's what I'm doing. I want to say

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one more thing. I make this sound like I planned it, I did

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not. I sat down one day, the way I usually do to record a snippet

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of an idea, the beginning of a sentence, and it came out as a

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poem. And it still felt like the right thing to do. And so I

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posted it. And then I sat down again a few days later, and it

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still felt like the right thing to do. And so I posted it. And

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after a while, I had to ask myself "what happened? you were

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making these prose essays, and now you're making something

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different?" And so one of the things I learned in seminary is

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that sometimes it helps to explain. And so I'm explaining

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as much as I can, I'm explaining why once I figured out what was

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happening, I didn't stop it. I didn't tell myself that I had to

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stay in that form of prose, I didn't tell myself I had to stay

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inside the structure of an essay, I didn't force myself

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back into that. A large part of that is how intensives work, we

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can't be forced into a form simply because somebody said so,

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even if that somebody was ourselves, we need space to do

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things differently, if that differently has integrity for

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us, if that differently serves our larger purpose. And so once

Leela Sinha:

I noticed what was happening, I went back and took a look. Why,

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why would this feel right? Why was this working? Why? Why did I

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suddenly feel freer and more grounded and much more

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enthusiastic about sharing my podcast? And the answer was

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because there's a level of authenticity that's available to

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me in poetry that isn't available to me in prose. And as

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an intensive, that authenticity is absolutely vital to my pride

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in my work. So if prose starts to feel like half a lie, I have

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to do something different. And what is that different thing

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going to be? In this case, it turns out to be poems. So thanks

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for being here with me, in my intensive space in my poetry

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space in my ethics-oriented business space. Thanks for being

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nimble. Thanks for being curious. Thanks for being wise.

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Thanks for being creative. Thanks for wondering how it

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could be with me, and thanks for being with me, in this moment,

Leela Sinha:

different. Because this is where the change begins.

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Leela Sinha