Ars Poëtica by Rita Dove

Ars Poetica

by Rita Dove

Thirty miles to the only decent restaurant

was nothing, a blink

in the long dull stare of Wyoming.

Halfway there the unknown but terribly

important essayist yelled Stop!

I wanna be in this; and walked

fifteen yards onto the land

before sky bore down and he came running,

crying Jesus--there's nothing out there!

I once met an Australian novelist

who told me he never learned to cook

because it robbed creative energy.

What he wanted most was

to be mute; he stacked up pages;

he entered each day with an ax.

What I want is this poem to be small,

a ghost town

on the larger map of wills.

Then you can pencil me in as a hawk:

a traveling x-marks-the-spot.

This poem is from Grace Notes, Rita Dove's 5th poetry collection, published in 1989 by Norton.

Have I mentioned how much I love Rita Dove's poetry? She and Heather McHugh, another favorite of mine, share a few similarities: the ability to seamlessly mesh the serious with humor, their word play, how they both write about people they have met and let them talk and tell their (usually) weird stories in their own words, and their absolute mastery at fully setting scenes with sparse description.

But let's focus on this Dove poem, written--I am 99% certain--during (or after and about) a residency Dove had in Wyoming. A group of the artists in residence decide to head out to a restaurant, driving half an hour through "the long dull stare of Wyoming." Brutal, surprising, and certainly true in parts. Don't come at me--every large state has sections that, when driving through them, you wonder how there can be so much boring sameness in one place and how it can last so long.

I don't know how Dove intends her characterization of the essayist, if she is being sincere or sarcastic. Maybe even both. I tend to lean towards sarcasm, only because I have met people who, out in rural areas, are so dismissive and blind to everything that surrounds them they say asinine things such as "there's nothing out there." I also think she is presenting this man is a way as to make fun of him--keeping in mind she does little beyond letting him speak in his own words (unless he is entirely made-up, of course) because the second stanza gives us another bizarre artist.

Another prose writer, of course! ;)

The Australian novelist apparently thinks we are all endowed with a certain amount of creativity and to use any of his on cooking would drain him. He even wishes he were mute, as speaking uses some of his creativity. But he does write a lot (stacked up papers) which says nothing of their quality and each day he rolls out of bed ready to CRUSH HIS ART.

Pop Culture Tangent: in an episode of Dharma and Greg, the title couple have dinner with Greg's assistant and her new boyfriend. The boyfriend is a pretentious windbag and a Poet. During the meal, he is asked what poets he himself reads and respects. I am paraphrasing, but he says something to the effect of: "Oh I don't read other people's poetry! They might influence me!" (The poet was played to perfection by Steve Valentine, a Scot who must have some experience with absurd "artists" to have pulled this character off so well.) I am reminded of this scene periodically and Dove's Aussie novelist was the current trigger.

As a remedy for all of the (male) unearned bluss and earned blunder, Dove presents her own thinking about art. An ars poetica is a poem about poetry; specifically, about the essence of poetry--what it is, why it matters, how it has effected the speaker/poet, how to write it, etc. However, most ars poeticas do not state outright that they are talking about poetry; many (perhaps most) use a conceit (extended metaphor) but are titled Ars Poetica, as Rita Dove does here. And Dove's first line in the last stanza is such a reproach to the two men and their huge self-important attitudes: "I want is this poem to be small" she says.

She gets even smaller--a ghost town on a large map. And then we are given her "this is what I think an artist should be" moment--a hawk, a keen observer who notices everything, a being who never settles but is always moving and always noticing the important thing. And the little twist to it all is that she says the hawk should be penciled in--temporary and easily erased. Ready to place somewhere else.