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PREAMBLE TO DIVINITY
by Vincent Ferrini, 1996
JUXTA
997 Seminole Trail #331, Charlottsville, VA 22901
Juxta43781@aol.com
and
3300 PRESS
3300 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
jacobus33@aol.comThe Foundling Whore has neither mother nor father. Is
without family. Is alone (as each is alone) and sells herself
(as each must) in order to sit at the table.
PREAMBLE TO DIVINITY is covered by this single, striking
image. It is a poetic character of mythic proportions and there-fore
a reflection of the collective psyche in its inmost self.
The poet who imaginatively distills such an image is a poetic
metaphysician [Vico: NEW SCIENCE, 374-84], or, in less formidable
phrasing, a philosophical poet.
Seen in this light the sequence of five poetic meditations carrying the title PREAMBLE TO
DIVINITY constitutes a philosophical
poem in the classical sense of wisdom literature. It is
a philosophical poem that discloses the essential link between
poetry and politics. One would like to say the "identity" of
poetry and politics, but that remains a utopian ideal for
most people, for the great majority who labor in the global system
of values that sustains the exclusionary utopias of the few.
The counter- idea of utopia for humanity is scornfully rejected
by elite ideologies with a monopoly on what is possible.
Ferrini rejects this rejection and posits a universal utopia
that is
everyone's
birthright poem
The first two units of PREAMBLE TO DIVINITY appear in the
linear form of a promulgation: "Ex Cathedra," from the Chair
of Poetry, so to speak. Refusing to divorce the word from the
act, Ferrini opens with the statement of a revolutionary poetics
to end the exclusionary power of elites.
The poem aint words alone...
The Poem can't stop on the page
Cast in a Comic Frame which overthrows itself ("The MIND
slinks away from enervating repetitions/.../do you think the
children are blind to the Bullshit), the sequence moves through
a one page transition, "Quest," to
a
soup of
wordsin the last two segments "Cell Talk" and "Index."
These segments are composed in the traditional form of
ancient wisdom literature which consists of gnomic maxims
that provoke reflection and ruminations.
"Cell.. Talk XIII" is an example: "Politics/is/Bad/
Poetry/come/out/of/your/closets/0."
The saying has oracular power. It pushes thought toward
transcendence. Politics is bad poetry because the two are
divorced. The original marriage kaput. Poetry is like a wife
that got dumped after she put her husband through law school.
The husband got into the hierarchy, learned its secrets, and
practices the politics of deceit ("Bad Poetry").
What is the wife to do? Come out of the closet, the maxim says.
Not to write more poetry only - "The Poem aint words alone."
Words on the page is still closet work. Poetry out of the closet
makes life different, and that's the point. Hierarchies
collapse. Secrets are worthless. Only poetry remains of
value. It replaces thoughts about refrigerators, cars, and the
latest designs from New York. It must even replace
Christmas, as we now know it. Naturally, this appears as madness
to the Platonic Guardians of the Hierarchy and its Laws. For
them the political is a defense (and sometimes an offense) of
the privileges on which their corrupt exclusionary utopias are
based.
Contrary to what the title suggests in a still nominally
Christian culture, PREAMBLE TO DIVINITY has nothing to do with
other-worldly religion. Mystifying the divine is an ancient
tactic of elitist ideologies. Ferrini's use of "divinity"
is more congruent with that of Epicurus, the principal opponent
in Ancient Greek philosophy of Plato's elitist mystifications.
Epicurus used the "blessedness of friendship" together with
the joyful freedom and spontaneity of an untroubled mind as
exemplars of divinity in human cognition. In both poet and
philosopher there is a return to the infant for truths of
nature: "The unceasing Thythm of Delighting" (Ferrini), the
stop and go signals of pain and pleasure (Epicurus). Divinity
in this sense lies within the human embrace and the senses
possessed by every individual comprise the road of access to it.
In drawing philosophy and poetry together Ferrini has
helped bring to consciousness the utopian possibility that
our hypercommercial society is constantly alienating us from.
At the same time he exposes us to the truth about poetry, that
its greater meaning occurs in living, in becoming the vital
creative force in both our personal and social life. For this
he deserves to be read and appreciated.
Peter J. Laska
Poet and Critic© December 1996
Peter J. Laska
Peter J. Laska is a poet and critic, he is also a professor of Literature, author of several books of poetry, and contributing editor of LEFT CURVE, an International Journal of FILM, CULTURE, POLITICS, he has published reviews and essays.
Professor Laska was also the editor and publisher of the now defunct literary magazine, The Unrealist .
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