– Poetry is a gift of nature, although poems are products of individuals, whether or not they title themselves ‘poets,’ and regardless the degree of ownership they declare for making something out of material found in the common language.
To declare or acknowledge that any person or institution has authority over any aspect of poetry, is to hobble and belittle a gift of nature. One doesn’t need to be a card-carrying political scientist to understand why an artificial governing scheme, such as a parliamentary monarchy, feels the need to invent a poet laureateship. By luring leading poets into the royal household, where they’ll be treated like peers of the realm, their royal majesties remove from the people the best part of their own voice. Castles are, and will always need to be, safe havens against populations grown angry.
One does need to be a soothsayer of the first rank, however, to explain why a republic, freely instituted by the people, would ever pretend that poetry, nature’s gift to them, must be administered via the Library of Congress, with or without input from the Department of Education! Wouldn’t that be as fatal and foolish as ceding authority over a woman’s pregnancy to the Department of Justice, or to any of the several states?
Between Bradstreet and Freneau are iconoclasts such as J. Hector St. John de Crevcoeur (1735-1815) According to wikipedia, the town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, is named after him, having been suggested by Ethan Allen.
Excerpt from Letters from an American Farmer
This excerpt from On The Situation, Feelings, and Pleasures, of an American Farmer, from Letters from an American Farmer (1782, London), decidedly prose not poetry, nonetheless seems to betoken a transition from an essentially compliant European sensibility to an essentially questioning American sensibility. Also, it makes it easier to follow with a poem by Freneau, On a Honey Bee, Drinking from a Glass of Wine, and Drowned Therein. Although perhaps still too English to be American, the poem announces a revolution in the nature of poetry, now free of governmental, academic, and other manners of artificial aegis or sanction.
J. Hector St. John de Crevcoeur: “In the evening when I return home through my low grounds, I am astonished at the myriads of insects which I perceive dancing in the beams of the setting sun. I was before scarcely acquainted with their existence, they are so small that it is difficult to distinguish them; they are carefully improving this short evening space, not daring to expose themselves to the blaze of our meridian sun. I never see an egg brought on my table but I feel penetrated with the wonderful change it would have undergone but for my gluttony; it might have been a gentle useful hen leading her chickens with a care and vigilance which speaks shame to many women. A cock perhaps, arrayed with the most majestic plumes, tender to its mate, bold, courageous, endowed with an astonishing instinct, with thoughts, with memory, and every distinguishing characteristic of the reason of man. I never see my trees drop their leaves and their fruit in the autumn, and bud again in the spring, without wonder; the sagacity of those animals which have long been the tenants of my farm astonish me: some of them seem to surpass even men in memory and sagacity. I could tell you singular instances of that kind. What then is this instinct which we so debase, and of which we are taught to entertain so diminutive an idea? My bees, above any other tenants of my farm, attract my attention and respect; I am astonished to see that nothing exists but what has its enemy, one species pursue and live upon the other: unfortunately our kingbirds are the destroyers of those industrious insects; but on the other hand, these birds preserve our fields from the depredation of crows which they pursue on the wing with great vigilance and astonishing dexterity.
Thus divided by two interested motives, I have long resisted the desire I had to kill them, until last year, when I thought they increased too much, and my indulgence had been carried too far; it was at the time of swarming when they all came and fixed themselves on the neighbouring trees, from whence they catched those that returned loaded from the fields. This made me resolve to kill as many as I could, and I was just ready to fire, when a bunch of bees as big as my fist, issued from one of the hives, rushed on one of the birds, and probably stung him, for he instantly screamed, and flew, not as before, in an irregular manner, but in a direct line. He was followed by the same bold phalanx, at a considerable distance, which unfortunately becoming too sure of victory, quitted their military array and disbanded themselves. By this inconsiderate step they lost all that aggregate of force which had made the bird fly off. Perceiving their disorder he immediately returned and snapped as many as he wanted; nay, he had even the impudence to alight on the very twig from which the bees had drove him. I killed him and immediately opened his craw, from which I took 171 bees; I laid them all on a blanket in the sun, and to my great surprise 54 returned to life, licked themselves clean, and joyfully went back to the hive; where they probably informed their companions of such an adventure and escape, as I believe had never happened before to American bees! ”
Or quaff the waters of the stream,
Why hither come on vagrant wing?—
Does Bacchus tempting seem—
Did he, for you, this glass prepare?—
Will I admit you to a share?
Did storms harass or foes perplex,
Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay—
Did wars distress, or labours vex,
Or did you miss your way?—
A better seat you could not take
Than on the margin of this lake.
Welcome!—I hail you to my glass:
All welcome, here, you find;
Here, let the cloud of trouble pass,
Here, be all care resigned.—
This fluid never fails to please,
And drown the griefs of men or bees.
What forced you here, we cannot know,
And you will scarcely tell—
But cheery we would have you go
And bid a glad farewell:
On lighter wings we bid you fly,
Your dart will now all foes defy.
Yet take not, oh! too deep a drink,
And in this ocean die;
Here bigger bees than you might sink,
Even bees full six feet high.
Like Pharoah, then, you would be said
To perish in a sea of red.
Do as you please, your will is mine;
Enjoy it without fear—
And your grave will be this glass of wine,
Your epitaph—a tear—
Go, take your seat in Charon’s boat,
We’ll tell the hive, you died afloat.
Philip Freneau
Mottoes, sundry excerpts, and pre-paid blurbs.
RWE .123 – “It was always the theory of literature that the word of a poet was authoratative and final S/He was supposed to be the mouth of a divine wisdom”