EPIC
I visited an old friend today. Reached high on the shelf where he has maintained pride of place. I have not as yet found anyone worthy enough to knock him from that perch. It is with some remorse that I say, I had to dust him off and wipe the indentations of the spine. It has been too long old friend; I have neglected you. The dark rimmed glasses stared at me with a knowing glare, but also with an understanding of my neglect. Because that is what he did best, understand. He knew every nuance of the heart of man, the hero poet, Kavanagh. And indeed, the nuances are many and varied. His ability to convert the ordinary into the spectacular, a rare gift. The elevation of the ordinary to the status of heroic is not only clever writing it is far more, a call to arms to defend simplicity, defending the ordinary woman and man. Reminding us that our day-to-day defeats are as catastrophic as anything that has ever played out on the world stage. People often fail to see the correlation between the two. Something cannot be judged important or noteworthy based on the idea that it is only so, if the whole world knows about it. Socrates and Aristotle do not hold the monopoly on philosophy. They indeed dwell upon the high ground, but a profound statement from someone leaning over the top bar of a field gate on a warm summer evening can shape or add clarity to the life of a less experienced traveller. Are their musings on life any less important than Protagoras hypothesising that every argument has two sides, and both may hold equal validity. As Kavanagh said, “Is there some light of imagination in these wet clods?” The ordinary is every philosopher’s thesis and musings played out, day in and day out by heroes of people whom the world do not think worthy of a second glance. We live daily ‘in important places, times when great events were decided.’ Who decides what is epic or not? It is in proportion to the status of the player and their involvement in the moment. The fact that it does not have a countrywide or global audience does not lessen its significance. Indeed, many issues which seem to preoccupy the attention of that global audience pale in significance if we care to compare them to the loneliness of an empty house, the loss of a loved one or the abandonment of a broken heart. Who is crushed the most? What reserves will they have to draw upon to open the door and let the new day’s sun hit their face? How deep will they have to dig to find the energy or the mental resilience to keep one foot in front of the other? I would presume far deeper than is required to fix a broken nail or find the ‘where with all’ to ‘influence’ the world. There are very few who at sometime in their lives do not ‘woo the clay’ and we all fall into disappointments of one kind or another. Our efforts to recover are the places where the epics as Kavanagh thought, are written. They are no less important and in reality, no one has the right to criticise them as insignificant. So, who decides what is important and what is worthy? Dare I say the person who is inevitably at the centre of it. Kavanagh himself was criticised by an ‘elite society’ of critics who took it upon themselves to be the guardians of the literary world. We are so very lucky to have such a cohort who work steadfastly to protect the written word. His poetry was ‘easily enjoyed but almost as easily forgotten.’ “A young Irish poet of promise rather than achievement.” I am sure such comments may well have created epics of his own within the young Kavanagh. Poetry is verbalisation of emotion; it is as simple as that. We can adhere to rules if we wish, therefore there are fourteen lines in a sonnet, stanzas are of a certain length and we can endeavour to have iambic pentameter course through the veins of our writing, which in relation to the latter is always a good thing. The rhythm of the words mirror the rhythm of the conversation, the lilt of the melody if you like. We are of course our own toughest critics and there should only be one critic of a piece of writing and that is the author. They are the ones who are at the centre of it and if the words have expressed the emotion which they were feeling, then the exercise has been a success. The absence of the critic should however not be confused with the actual meaning of the word itself and open positive discussion should always be encouraged. So, never let anyone tell you what you have written is of poor quality, never let all of those unanswered submissions convince you that what you have sent must be poor quality because you alone have the monopoly on deciding whether it is or not. If the words are born from your own emotion or the empathy you feel for the emotive reaction of another, then it is the most perfect piece that has ever been composed. It is flawless in its descriptive quality of the epics that have for centuries flew under the radar of history.