Poetry Course: Soul Weight

Without this, there is no poetry

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One of the more intangible elements of good poetry is "soul weight" or "psychic weight." However, we produce less weighty poems with our McMFA factory farms and "Write to Market" get-rich-quick schemes than ever. Here is an example of a poem with psychic weight by Antonio Machado

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The wind, one brilliant day, called

to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

"In return for the odor of my jasmine,

I'd like all the odor of your roses."

"I have no roses; all the flowers

in my garden are dead."

"Well then, I'll take the withered petals

and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."

the wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:

"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?"

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This poem is a literal metaphor about moving from the personal garden to a transcendent garden. Our CBT bullshit culture that has no real connection to mythology or psychology has kept us in logic and the personal garden. When most of the best poets in history write their most iconic books, they do it with the fire of mythology, religion or spirit behind them. The best way to tap into psychic weight is to let your spirituality guide you. It's hard to do across a novel, but in a poem, it should be the standard.

Juan Ramon Jiminez writes in my favorite poem by him that

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I am not I.

I am this one

walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,

and whom at other times I forget;

the one who remains silent while I talk,

the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,

the one who will remain standing when I die.

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One of the easiest ways to tap into psychic weight is through grief. Not self-confessional MEW MEW grief, but the silent grief Vallejo writes

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They’ll say we have a lot

of grief in one eye, and a lot of grief

in the other also, and when they look

a lot of grief in both….

So then!…..Naturally….So!….Don’t say a word!

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Or Rilke

Rejoicing has lost her doubts, and Longing broods on her error,

Only Grief still learns; she spends the whole night

Counting up our evil inheritance with her small hands.

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