Anyway, Kellie and I were walking the other morning as the sun came up. It was one of those gorgeous sunrises that makes a person feel how special sunrises can be. The sun itself was hidden behind puffy clouds that were round and shiny like golden dinner rolls in a baking pan except the folds between the rolls were multi-colored from deep dark purples to glowing golden oranges and reds. In some places, the colors were in linear streaks, and in other parts of the sky, they diffused out into a shimmering mist of no particular color. The brilliance of this sunrise inspired us to talk about how it is easy to see how, only a short time ago in the long history of human existence, people worshipped and even sacrificed other humans to the great god of the Sun. The wonder of the scene made me feel small, insignificant, out-of-control, and in the presence of phenomena much greater than myself. It was the essence of a sublime moment. Besides our brief conversation, I cannot tell you how Kellie felt. One aspect of the sublimity of a beautiful thing or an awesome event is that it is very closely tied to the perception of the individual who experiences it.
Later in the day, as a precocious child of a scientific age with no small amount of technical knowledge, I re-examined the experience through a different thought process. I know very well that the sun is a giant ball of gases in a phase of continuous fusion. I know that its rays take a matter of minutes to reach Earth where they are affected by gravity, electromagnetic energy, and other atmospheric conditions. Most of the brilliant color palette that I saw was provided by the prismatic effect of water vapor upon light energy and, mostly, by my position in relation to the water vapor. Nobody standing somewhere else could have seen what I saw. To condense my long thought process into a shorter story, I realized that knowing the how and the why of that striking sunrise took nothing away from the awe that I felt when I experienced it, and that, in fact, my ability to understand something about its processes gave me much more to think about beyond the initial primitive emotion that it evoked.
I would like to inspire poetry readers—and writers—to think about their poems in the same manner as a sunrise. To have a sublime moment with a poem is surely one of life’s richest experiences. To feel some raw and primal emotion while reading or writing a poem is a sensation greatly desired. This can be done in many different ways, but, no matter the method, how each individual aspect of the poem affected the result can and should be worth examining. Was the poem affective because of the ideas presented? Did it stir your emotions because of the context or your state-of-mind in relation to its ideas? Did its meter or rhythm create a special nuance? Did its sound play upon your heart or your mind? A sublime experience with a poem, reading or writing, can bring about hours and hours of enjoyment if we take the time and the pleasure to unravel why and how it has such an effect upon us.
I must also issue some warnings about poems and sunrises. First, most are pretty ordinary. Even the sunrise that I describe above would become boring if it occurred every day. For an experience, a poem, or a sunrise to remain awesome and awe-inspiring, it must, in some manner, continually surprise. Often, this can only happen with the most intense knowledgeable scrutiny. Second, just as we need not worship the sun or the atmospheric conditions that produced the dazzling sunrise, we do not need to venerate the elements or authors of certain poems that are able to stir emotions in us. I certainly cannot say that the creation of a sublime poem is accidental, even in a natural sense, but very few, if any, poets consistently write poems that “wow” a wide audience. Good poems of all different sorts are being written by poets that we do not know because, to maintain my analogy, readers are constantly being encouraged to go to the same place to look at the sunrise. Finally, I will probably remember the sunrise that I have described above because I have written about it. However, I know that it was not the “best” that I have ever seen. I know that there are others that were more beautiful but that I have forgotten. The same with poems and poets. Because we write about them, read about them, maybe even perform some of them, well, that doesn’t mean that they are the best, the most awesome, the most sublime, or the most beautiful. Familiarity may make a particular poem or poet a comfortable “go to,” but then, is anything “comfortable” really deserving of our awe?
Tomorrow, see if you can be in the right place to catch that wonderful sunrise and ponder on all that it took to make it magical--if you can find it. Then, before you forget about that sunrise, see if you can do the same thing either reading or writing a poem. It will not be a day wasted.