Poetry and Mindfulness: Interruption to a Journey

133 Pages·2017·1.559 MB·English

by  Bryan Walpert (auth.)

POETRY AND
MINDFULNESS
Interruption to a
Journey
Bryan Walpert
Poetry and Mindfulness
Bryan Walpert
Poetry and
Mindfulness
Interruption to a Journey
Bryan Walpert
School of English and Media Studies
Massey University
Auckland, New Zealand
ISBN 978-3-319-68680-6 ISBN 978-3-319-68681-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68681-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955051
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For Nancy, Abigail, and Zachary, here and now
P
reface
Much has been said about the speed of our lives at this particular point in
history. Many forces, professionally and socially, pressure us to flit from
one thing to another, to be in two places at once. The prevalence of smart-
phones, tablets, and wearable technology not only make it possible to
multitask across time zones but obliges us to do so. Whatever the advan-
tages of the internet and the many technologies we use to leverage it, there
is growing evidence that we are paying a price in distraction and in neuro-
logical changes that are affecting our ability to concentrate, to follow
lengthy arguments—and perhaps even to empathize with one another.
This book is about how a very old and ultraportable piece of technol-
ogy can help us to stave off such problems. That piece of technology is
called a poem. And I will make my argument about poetry in the context
of mindfulness. For every action, there is a counter-reaction. And in an age
of technological distraction, mindfulness offers an increasingly popular
counter-tendency toward focus and attention. Mindfulness has been
around for 2500 years, but in recent decades it has infiltrated the West via
the conduits we tend to value—science, medicine, business, and, increas-
ingly, education. It encourages us to be present to our lives, both external
and internal, and to attend to the moment as it is. Not as we wish it to be,
not as we think it is on the basis of the habits we have formed, but truly to
pay attention and see things for what they are. The values of mindfulness
would include a calm concentration and, as a result of practice, a better
awareness of ourselves and others, and the development of empathy.
This book stems from my own personal and professional journey. I have
been writing, publishing, and teaching poetry for about two decades.
vii
viii PREFACE
My MFA and Ph.D. both focused on writing and exploring poetry. I have
taught poetry at the university level at multiple institutions in two coun-
tries. And I have published three collections of poetry and a monograph
on the links between poetry and science. My interest in mindfulness is less
academic than my interest in poetry, but it is no less personal. My expo-
sure to mindfulness began with an Eastern Religions class as an under-
graduate at Brown University, an interest I picked up a few years later with
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts, followed by as many of his books
as I could find, and then books by many others.
My practical introduction to mindfulness occurred twenty-two years
ago, when a friend introduced me to weekly meditations and talks at the
Baltimore Shambhala Center. On Sunday mornings, I would drive down-
town, climb a set of stairs, and spend an hour alternately sitting on a cush-
ion or walking in circles around the carpeted floor, sunlight filtering
through the windows, the scent of incense hovering in the air. Eventually,
I took a weekend mindfulness course, where we sat largely in silence for
hours, interrupted with occasional group discussions and one-to-one ses-
sions with a mindfulness mentor. I came to see how difficult it could be to
sit still and focus on my breath. My back hurt. During one of our group
discussions, a fellow participant, a beginner like me, said, “This sucks!” I
tended to agree. But after that weekend he became a regular devotee. And,
as with him, it made a difference for me. I became aware of just how much
buzzing my mind did, flitting from subject to subject, worry to worry. My
relationship with mindfulness meditation practice has been an uneven one,
but during periods when I have practiced consistently, I’ve found myself
much more aware of my emotions, much more capable of dealing with
situations and my reactions to them in a conscious manner, rather than
reacting unconsciously on the basis of learned behavior. My interest in
mindfulness has remained strong throughout—in my reading and my
thinking—even if my practice has not always consistently followed suit.
In no small way, my introduction to mindfulness meditation—and the
reading I did around it—paved the way to my interest in poetry as I
became increasingly aware of my own thoughts and interests, my satisfac-
tions and dissatisfactions. Eventually I would see the two, mindfulness and
poetry, as connected. Poetry, I will argue here, offers a means of develop-
ing concentration, focusing on the present, and cultivating both contex-
tual and ecological thinking—the sort of thinking Buddhist mindfulness
helps to inculcate and that has societal benefits in helping us to grow
accustomed to complexity and training us to consider causes and effects as
PREFAC E ix
more dynamic than they might appear. It might even, as a few studies
tentatively suggest, help to develop the parts of the brain that increase
attention span and compassion. Poetry is not just a means of occupying
our minds, not just a form of entertainment or solace or wisdom, though
it can be all of those things. In an age where we are encouraged always to
focus on the next destination, poetry offers an interruption to a journey.
Or, more to the point, our multiple journeys. Poetry opens us to looking
much more insightfully at the scripts, habits, and conventions that our
journeys entail and permit us to see those journeys in new ways—and in
some cases rethink them completely, just as my explorations of mindful-
ness helped me to rethink my own career journey and led me here. I will
suggest that poetry has in that sense a kind of personal and social utility.
There is a larger context. In a world of distraction, one that values the
quick hit, the surface skim, and the YouTube sound bite, what we call the
liberal arts or the humanities are under more pressure than ever to show
their value. In thinking through how reading and studying poetry might
help us to be more focused and compassionate, I am making a small part
of the larger argument for the humanities, for the arts, and for a liberal
education. Others have offered good, broad arguments for the humani-
ties, so I will simply deal with my own small part of it. I will argue that as
we look for ways to persuade students, humanities colleagues, and those
outside of the humanities of the value of studying poetry, it is useful to link
what we do—whether we teach the reading or writing of poems—to the
growing societal interest in mindfulness, an interest that itself is seen as a
means to resist some of the unfortunate effects of technology. I will argue
that the popularity of mindfulness is in one sense a useful way into litera-
ture, given its growing use throughout society. But I will also argue that
there is a natural fit, that the consequences of mindfulness training are in
sympathy with the benefits of studying poetry as a reader or writer. And I
will suggest that some of the greatest benefits of studying poetry stem
simply from the way we engage poems, as readers or as writers—not from
their content or with any claim for greater wisdom among poets them-
selves. This book, then, is in that larger sense a defense of poetry in a
society that undervalues it. That mindfulness is finally gaining a foothold
in the West offers a means to show the value of poetry because poetry and
mindfulness truly are, as I see it, connected in a number of ways. These
ways seem to me quite evident, but when I mentioned to colleagues that
I was considering a book on mindfulness and poetry, the general reaction
was surprise. This confirmed for me that such a book was worth writing.
x PREFACE
This book is primarily for colleagues in literary studies and creative
writing who find themselves pressed by students, colleagues, or those
beyond the academy to explain the relevance of poetry. But it is also for
those colleagues in other areas of the academy, and the potential audience
for this book is, to my mind, much broader than the scholarly or teaching
community. I hope to engage anyone with an interest in poetry or an
interest in present-oriented awareness and mindfulness. My hope, then, is
that any reader—scholarly or general—will come through this book with
a greater appreciation, in the context of mindfulness, for why poetry mat-
ters so deeply at the present time.
a
cknowledgments
It is easy to start acknowledging the many people who in one way or
another made it possible for this book to exist, but it is hard to know when
to stop. Thanks to Mark Ferrara for reading the manuscript and providing
useful feedback and support; to Douglas Osto for pointing to me a very
useful source; to Massey University for research leave; to the College of
Humanities and Social Sciences for a research grant that permitted time
for revision; to Associate Professors Joe Grixti and Jenny Lawn, successive
Heads of School, for funds to pay for poetry permissions; and to the
anonymous reviewers for their supportive and constructive comments,
which led to a much more focused argument.
Many thanks go to my parents for being so supportive over the years.
Though they thought my initial forays into mindfulness meditation amus-
ing many years ago, I am pleased that my father has on his own come
around to the wisdom of Alan Watts (my mother remains amused). My
greatest thanks go to my wife, Nancy Golubiewski, who suggested I write
this book, and to my children, Abigail and Zachary. All three remind me,
in ways both explicit and implicit, both of the importance of staying pres-
ent and of just how far I have yet to travel simply to be here now.
There are publishers I wish to thank for permission to use material, but
I cannot, as they declined to give the sort of permissions required by
Palgrave Macmillan. This was in some cases despite the very strong desire
of the creators of the work, the poets themselves, to see their work dis-
cussed. Perhaps one day the conflicting requirements of academic and
trade publishers will be ironed out such that it is easy for a critic to fully
discuss poems in scholarly books.
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