There’s a young man who comes into Black Rose every so often, mostly on nights when poetry is read. He’s thoughtful and moderately reserved, compared to most he seems relatively normal. He is handsome though not spectacular. He has travelled extensively, and is quite a spiritual man (everyone knows the type- he has undoubtedly read The Prophet by Khalil Ghabrin). He reads poetry he himself has written, and reads it with excellent pace and diction though something is lacking from his performances. Every poem he writes is about a woman he loves, who does not love him. As he tells the story she is the most wonderful woman in the world, assuredly a special creation of God, who puts the moon to shame. This unrequited love seems to animate all his concerns, thought and action, though he never names her. I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s attack on excesses of metaphor and comparison in romantic poetry and Wordsworth’s injunction that poetry must be sourced from strong emotion but strong emotion recalled in tranquillity. Without casting any aspersions, for I genuinely don’t know, I wonder whether he loves her, or whether he has fallen in love with the idea of loving her. I wonder about how we could know the difference, and where the difference lies. Whether we have not done harm to romantic love by crowning it and declaring it a noble aspiration. I wonder about his beloved, does she know? Suspect? Have no clue? Does his attention (if visible) annoy, flatter, frighten, sadden, fill with tenderness or amuse or bemuse?
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 01:08:18 +0000
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