June 23: Talk Aloud, One-Person Concert, Resurrection

Santiago talks to himself . . . 

He did not remember when he had first started to talk aloud when he was by himself. He had sung when he was by himself in the old days and he had sung at night sometimes when he was alone steering on his watch in the smacks or in the turtle boats. He had probably started to talk aloud, when alone, when the boy had left. But he did not remember. When he and the boy fished together they usually spoke only when it was necessary. They talked at night or when they were storm-bound by bad weather. It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea and the old man had always considered it so and respected it. But now he said his thoughts aloud many times since there was no one that they could annoy.

I've always talked to myself.  When I'm working in my office at the library, I mutter expletives, give myself pep talks.  Streaming a movie or TV show, I frequently have conversations with the actors on screen, especially if it's a horror flick ("No, no!  Don't go in there, you idiot!!")  If I'm writing a new poem, I am a virtual one-person concert, reading and rereading, humming, whispering, sometimes singing.  Because poetry is all about sound and music.  

Tonight, I spent most of the evening working on a new poem.  I often wonder if Mozart or Bach did the same thing when they were composing something.  Singing phrases over and over, trying out different words for their librettos.  I bet they were virtual symphonies, creating each instrument and movement.  Mozart whistling the piccolo part.  Bach humming the violin solo.  

I don't have a new poem to share this evening.  It is still under construction, so it's in no shape to put in this post.  My whole point is that talking to yourself is sometimes the only way to solve problems, whether it be a poem problem or math problem.  Putting breath to it makes it more concrete.  Tangible.  

I think that's why people sometimes don't want to talk about traumatic events that have happened to them.  To put words to such things brings them back to life.  Perhaps it's the breath in the lungs or the syllables on the tongue.  Suddenly, resurrection occurs, and the past is dragged into the present.  

Of course, poetry is all about truth.  Truth is sometimes joyous.  Sometimes, it's painful.  A poem can be both.  In fact, I think the act of writing a poem is an attempt to take dross and spin it into gold.  To create the beautiful ugly.  Putting words to something difficult is a way of gaining a little control over it.  Of making it less scary, more manageable.  

That's why I talk to myself.  I'm doing it right now, speaking the words that I'm typing.  It's my attempt to understand a universe that, at the moment, seems arbitrarily cruel and stupid.  Or maybe it's just the humans inhabiting it.  Language is my way of trying to figure out the truth.  My truth.  About suffering.  Love.  Joy.  Despair.

Saint Marty will probably be talking to himself for the rest of his life.

Photo by Christine Saari