Mysterium tremendum [revised]

[PrinceMyshkin]

According to Rudolf Otto, in The Idea of the Holy, the numinous experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel



A man has no compulsion
to be better than he is
and yet...

“Play another octave on the piano,”
one of John Sexton’s teachers used to say,
and he, John Sexton, believes
that baseball can be one’s way
to God
or possibly, if I may take from that,
one of the ways
to reach one of the concepts of God.

We are scattered all over this earth
and yet, in each of us is the seed
from which the whole of Us
might be reborn.

Oh, welcome, welcome
all that is there:
even the bestiality,
the passionate embrace of ignorance,
along with the sharp rustproof
scythe of love and hope.

We will clean out the Augean Stables
together, or not at all.
We will feed our brothers and sisters
from what we have on our own plates,
or we ourselves will starve.

There is starvation of the body
and of the soul.

“Know thyself,”
said Socrates or some other Greek sage,
but perhaps he ought to have said:

Know thy better self...

[AuntShecky]

This part of your piece:








According to Rudolf Otto, in The Idea of the Holy, the numinous experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel





“Play another octave on the piano,”
one of John Sexton’s teachers used to say,
and he, John Sexton, believes







and this part of your piece

“Know thyself,”
said Socrates or some other Greek sage,
but perhaps he ought to have said:

Know thy better self...
[/B]


are both way, way too much like prose.
The middle part, which I didn't quote, is certainly more poetic.

Even so, the piece seems to sound like an academic piece or a college theme, maybe for Philosophy 101.

In my ever-increasingly humble opinion, I would have preferred the point that you're trying to make expressed in more specific imagery and less abstract speculation or declarations. Maybe you could sustain the baseball metaphor in a way that goes against the cliché that "life is a game."

What I'm getting at is why not some illustrations of
the two "mysteria."

[PrinceMyshkin]

This part of your piece:





are both way, way too much like prose.
The middle part, which I didn't quote, is certainly more poetic.

Even so, the piece seems to sound like an academic piece or a college theme, maybe for Philosophy 101.

In my ever-increasingly humble opinion, I would have preferred the point that you're trying to make expressed in more specific imagery and less abstract speculation or declarations. Maybe you could sustain the baseball metaphor in a way that goes against the cliché that "life is a game."

What I'm getting at is why not some illustrations of
the two "mysteria."

On fait ce qu'on peux as we say here in this linguistic corner of N. America. I do see your point, although I felt it worked as a sort of pastiche poem and it's surely not far off my usual conversational way of expressing myself.

But why "ever-increasingly humble opinion" (emphasis added)?

[Virgil]

I liked this poem very much from the beginning, and I am unchanged. i don't even remember the previous section that you took out. This is solid, if you ask me.

There's nothing wrong with a poem being prosey. It's when the prose slips into trite language. In fact there is a whole genre of poetry called prose poems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose_poetry.

For example:

A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. [Snip] Read the rest here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177128

[PrinceMyshkin]

I liked this poem very much from the beginning, and I am unchanged. i don't even remember the previous section that you took out. This is solid, if you ask me.

There's nothing wrong with a poem being prosey. It's when the prose slips into trite language. In fact there is a whole genre of poetry called prose poems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose_poetry.

For example:
Read the rest here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177128

The main revision is that I replaced a line of one of Firefangled's poems, which I attributed to him, but it hadn't occurred to me that I might need his permission. When it was brought to my attention that I should have done so I PMed him apologizing, but he said he would not have given permission if I'd asked first, so I deleted the original and then restored it here.

Many thanks for your comments.

[qimissung]

I think it's better than it was. Like AuntShecky, I prefer poetry that uses imagery and allusion, and while I usually like your style, Prince, this is a little too much telling rather than showing for my particular taste.

Having said that, thank you Virgil for your input and information, and Prince, I love the ideas expressed in this piece very, very much. I appreciate that you took the time to make it more your own (although I understand what you were trying to do before :)).

[PrinceMyshkin]

I think it's better than it was. Like AuntShecky, I prefer poetry that uses imagery and allusion, and while I usually like your style, Prince, this is a little too much telling rather than showing for my particular taste.

Having said that, thank you Virgil for your input and information, and Prince, I love the ideas expressed in this piece very, very much. I appreciate that you took the time to make it more your own (although I understand what you were trying to do before :)).

Many thanks, Qim - and if I neglected to do so before, to AuntShecky as well.

[Virgil]

I think it's better than it was. Like AuntShecky, I prefer poetry that uses imagery and allusion, and while I usually like your style, Prince, this is a little too much telling rather than showing for my particular taste.

Having said that, thank you Virgil for your input and information, and Prince, I love the ideas expressed in this piece very, very much. I appreciate that you took the time to make it more your own (although I understand what you were trying to do before :)).

I happen to disagree that this is too much telling. Sure there are a couple of lines there that are straight declarative but without the context of the metaphors they would be meaningless. There is the John Sexton metaphor, there is the seed metaphor (with it's biblical allusion), there is the bestiality metaphor, the scythe metaphor, the cleaning of the Augean Stables metaphor, the feeding metaphor, and finally the starvation metaphor. There is an intersting narrative built solely on the progession of metaphors. Though quite desparate in nature, they are interlinked and build toward the climatic epiphany. That's not telling at all.

[AuntShecky]

Couple clarifications:

The subject matter of the original piece and even its philosophical allusions are certainly valid.

I say "ever-increasingly humble" opinion 'cause I make embarrassing mistakes every day, especially on the world wide web.

Not just you, Prince, but everyone including me should heed the advice of experts as well as our own qimissung in the reply above in that we should show rather than tell.

And confidential to our beloved Virgil. "A Supermarket in California" was one of the best short American works of the second half of the twentieth century. BUT-- Allen Ginsberg wrote poems--not "prose poems."

[PrinceMyshkin]

Couple clarifications:

The subject matter of the original piece and even its philosophical allusions are certainly valid.

I say "ever-increasingly humble" opinion 'cause I make embarrassing mistakes every day, especially on the world wide web.

Not just you, Prince, but everyone including me should heed the advice of experts as well as our own qimissung in the reply above in that we should show rather than tell.

And confidential to our beloved Virgil. "A Supermarket in California" was one of the best short American works of the second half of the twentieth century. BUT-- Allen Ginsberg wrote poems--not "prose poems."

Thanks for your comments, and one of my own re your use of "couple" re your comments: I remember going into a bakery near where I lived, pointing at what I wanted and saying to the salesperson: "I'll have a couple of those, please."

To which she responded: "How many, two?"

Sic transit gloria couple, following closely on unique, which now is commonly "very unique" or "really unique" as if there were something more finite than one of a kind.

[Virgil]

And confidential to our beloved Virgil. "A Supermarket in California" was one of the best short American works of the second half of the twentieth century. BUT-- Allen Ginsberg wrote poems--not "prose poems."

Certainly he wrote poems, and I'm sure the overwhelming majority were not prose poems, but "A Supermarket in California" is a prose poem, and so listed in Poetry Foundation.

[qimissung]

"and he, John Sexton, believes
that baseball can be one’s way
to God"

I just don't get how this is a metaphor. I am really trying to understand. I don't understand from this at all what John Sexton's beliefs are that baseball can be one way to God. I don't understand from this how baseball is a metaphor for knowing God...

whereas...

"We will clean out the Augean Stables
together, or not at all."

I do understand what he is saying with this allusion/metaphor, (I think, anyway) that becoming better people is a mighty task and one better undertaken with the aid, comfort, solace, of others...

Thanks Virgil, I appreciate your taking on this Herculean task of explaining this to me (:))

[PrinceMyshkin]

"and he, John Sexton, believes
that baseball can be one’s way
to God"

I just don't get how this is a metaphor. I am really trying to understand. I don't understand from this at all what John Sexton's beliefs are that baseball can be one way to God. I don't understand from this how baseball is a metaphor for knowing God...

I encountered John Sexton via a conversation he had with Bill Moyers on the latter's "Journal." Alas he did not go into an elaborate description of how he meant that but one saw him conducting a class, "Baseball and Religion" in which he elicited some thoughtful reflections from his students re immersing oneself thoroughly in the game - or in anything. Perhaps he meant the ceremonial aspect of baseball, the deep solemnity with which, at times, it is played?

Certainly, many people follow the season - in particular their favourite teams or players - as devotedly as they might be expected to follow the practice of their religion, or even more so.

And I was reminded by Sexton's metaphor of Blake's wish to see "Eternity in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower"

[Hawkman]

I'm not familiar with John Sexton or the game of baseball. However, I beleive there is an argument in favour of the premise, that exploiting whatever talents we have, be they sporting or whatever, (in that these talents may be construed to be God-given) and therefore, doing what we do, to the best of our ability, using those God-Given talents, Glorifies God.

[qimissung]

I encountered John Sexton via a conversation he had with Bill Moyers on the latter's "Journal." Alas he did not go into an elaborate description of how he meant that but one saw him conducting a class, "Baseball and Religion" in which he elicited some thoughtful reflections from his students re immersing oneself thoroughly in the game - or in anything. Perhaps he meant the ceremonial aspect of baseball, the deep solemnity with which, at times, it is played?

Certainly, many people follow the season - in particular their favourite teams or players - as devotedly as they might be expected to follow the practice of their religion, or even more so.

Thank you Prince, but you are not saying that in those lines, not metaphorically or any other way. And that is my point.

In my humble opinion, referring to others ideas with attribution belongs to the realm of prose. Period. But ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted; and all writing builds on the ideas, written or verbal of others.

I still think this would be a better poem if you referred to the idea you spoke of, and not of who gave you the idea.

[Virgil]

"and he, John Sexton, believes
that baseball can be one’s way
to God"

I just don't get how this is a metaphor. I am really trying to understand. I don't understand from this at all what John Sexton's beliefs are that baseball can be one way to God. I don't understand from this how baseball is a metaphor for knowing God...


You're right that is not a metaphor, but the octave on the piano just before that justapose to the notion of baseball as a path to God is a metaphor. The game of baseball is compared to the notes/chords on the piano going higher.

Actually it just dawned on me that each of those metaphors coming in succession is like a series of chords working higher. Hmm, interesting. :)

[qimissung]

It is an interesting idea; and it would still be a better poem if he said that.

Thank you, Virgil, for your patience and your willingness to clarify.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Thanks Virgil & Qimissung.

Qim: I may have been distracted from the "show don't tell" principle by my own, very recent exposure to the goodness and intelligence of John Sexton and kind of assumed that those characteristics had been experienced by my readers as well and gave his assertion something like vatic authority.

Virgil: Your way of reading the various metaphors as an ascendant scale was not consciously on my mind as I composed it, but your characteristically close & generous way of reading this poem is balm to my heart - and my ego!

[Virgil]

You're welcome Prince. :)

[AuntShecky]

[QUOTE=qimissung;865509]"and he, John Sexton, believes
that baseball can be one’s way
to God"

Perhaps He used his Supreme Clout with the Commissioner's Office to get Tampa Bay to drop the word "Devil" from "Devil Rays." Or maybe at one time He was a utility outfielder for the LA Angels (at Anaheim.)

[PrinceMyshkin]

[QUOTE=qimissung;865509]"and he, John Sexton, believes
that baseball can be one’s way
to God"

Perhaps He used his Supreme Clout with the Commissioner's Office to get Tampa Bay to drop the word "Devil" from "Devil Rays." Or maybe at one time He was a utility outfielder for the LA Angels (at Anaheim.)


Darling! The dude happens to be the head of NYU, in a city that is the home of one or two baseball teams of some repute. And he grew up in Brooklyn - yes, that Brooklyn. In a two-person variant of stick-ball he always played the part of Jackie Robinson.