In Warbler Wood
The Hermeneutic Phenomenology of Poetry
Listen Here- Podcast Style
Until it has a poet, a place is not a place.
Wallace Stegnar
American poet Wallace Stevens wrote that we are the “transparence of the place” in which we find ourselves. We are on a journey to where we are. The Irish mystic and writer John Moriarty felt the where I am and the who I am are intimately connected. We are in this world and it is in us. To be of a place is different than to be from a place. To be of a place is allowing that place to shape us (McGillicuddy, 2018). Unknowingly we often walk through this life rather than walking into it.
The immersion of self in a place allows us to touch its mystery. A place shapes us. We emerge with a new meaning and understanding. Through a reflective glance hermeneutic phenomenology attempts to shine light onto meaning making through lived experience (Green et al, 2021).
The process of arriving at a new understanding is deeply connected with language. Through language we can meet the poetic moment of an experience. Language connects us to our being in the world (Gadamer 2013). The power of poetry lies in its ability to reveal an experience as it is experienced as opposed to how it is thought (Freeman 2016). Poetically, the word brings in the world, through the senses of a door to a secret garden that had long been forgotten. In poetry we can express through the voice of the experience. Poetry works on us and in us (Green et al, 2021). Poetry and phenomenology are partners. They allow us to meet at the intersection of heart and soul. The crossroads of Being in this world yet not of it.
In life we often no longer see what is all around us. Things disappear as if they had sunken down below the observable surface of our existence. Through language poetry helps us catch a glimpse of what shines underneath the surface. What was sedimented and hidden to us illuminates the light and resurfaces once again in an act of remembrance. Parts of us awakened are by the poetic (Green et al, 2021). In that revealing, meaning arrives to undress the mystery of a moment.
When I enter into the woods I surrender to the light. In the glitter of the tinsel that shows up to reflect the light all around me I no longer miss the trees for the forest. I leave the wood where I entered. Who I am, never the same. Maybe every experience needs a poet for it to be an experience after all.
The poet is the priest of the invisible.
Wallace Stevens
In Warbler Wood
My heart is broken open
there is nothing left worth stealing
Shreds of tinsel hide in the corners
Everywhere and nowhere
Maybe everything has always been here
Wrapped around me
A naked wind
Familiar yet untold
Dancing into the wildness of truth
There is something about the shape of the light
as she releases from the darkness
Her pilgrimage
The unfolding wings of an angel
Revealing
a crucible of moments
in the thirst of the void
somewhere between
the yes and the no
Where does the colour come from?
Slowly bleeding out across the sky
Maybe heaven is already here
as it echoes off the deep sigh
of the anvil of presence
singing into the endless instant
somewhere between a story and a prayer
There is something in me older than the sun
In the song of the trees I feel it pulse
Where I am I have always been
I leave where I entered
Who I am
Never the same
© Jamie Millard
I believe that poetry is meant to be read out loud. Reading, writing and listening to a poem is meditative and the words create an intimate encounter with the heartfulness of presence. We enter into the presence of a poem. Poetry is a portal to possibility as it connects us to ourselves, to others, to this world and to our spirit. Poetic inquiry connects us to meaning.
Please reach out to me if I can be of any assistance to you on your journey through the wood as you step into the experience of your own poetic moments.
Please enjoy the audio podcast style version shared at the top of this article.
Lots of Love,
Jamie
References:
McGillicudy, Mary. 2018. John Moriarty: Not the whole story. The Lilliput Press.
Green, Emma et al. 2021. Poem as/and palimpsest: hermeneutic phenomenology and/as poetic inquiry. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Volume 20:1-9
Gadamer, H. 2013. Truth and method. J.Weinsheimer translation. Bloomsbury Academic. (Original work published 1975).
Freeman, M. 2016. Modes of thinking for qualitative data analysis. Taylor and Francis.
The opening of the poem was powerful and well-written. It sets the mood for the whole poem.
Really interesting, and a joy to read, Jamie. I picked up that as one can never step in the same river twice, so also we can never step into the same life twice; we can't repeat 'the good experience', like trying to nail it down. It's forever new; we are changed, the river-of-life is changed. We have to remain open, and humble; ready to give, and receive.