Baudelaire and the Bottleneck

Baudelaire - 

Sometimes I get the impression that I'm not really a good poet because I don't read enough poetry. At the same time however I feel that poetry is very odd in this way. Like many arts it can be stripped down into basic elements and components, but can still be mastered by a person with absolutely no training or interest prior to their begging in the field. For just as many great painters as there were who had to struggle through art school and try their hardest to achieve what they loved, there seems to be a number who just as easily threw paint onto a canvas and, no matter how they did it, turned it into the greatest art of a century. There seems to be an odd discrepancy between artists who try to force their soul into a particular form and ones who treat their enormous gift with ambivalence.

In the end what tends to happen for me is that I think that i should read more poetry, so that I can be a good poet, but often stop myself because I'm not reading poetry because I want to or because I love it (although I do) and I'm not even reading it because I want to become a better poet (again, I do). I want to read other poets so that I can have the semblance of better poetry. Just like a great painter would be expected to have favorite artists from the past, or a famous singer is expected to have musical inspirations.

This kind of struggle goes on in my head a lot, and it often stops me from reading what I later discover to be great poetry. One such case is that of a brilliant poet I just recently discovered; Charles Baudelaire.

I don't know anything about him, but even with the limited samples that I have read so far I highly respect him and hope to some day achieve writing that could even be compared with his. I'm really excited to find out more about who he was and why he wrote some of the beautiful things that he did. It really makes me wish I didn't over-complicate reading poetry, and that I would just do what I love because I love it.

Baudelaire writes a lot about "the poet." Some of his descriptions are so brilliant that I can't even do anything but to simply show them to you. Here is a poem he wrote called "L'Albatros" (Obviously translated)

The Albatross

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew
Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birds
That indolently follow a ship
As it glides over the deep, briny sea.

Scarcely have they placed them on the deck
Than these kings of the sky, clumsy, ashamed,
Pathetically let their great white wings
Drag beside them like oars.

That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is,
So beautiful before, now comic and ugly!
One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe;
Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew!

The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky
Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman;
When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers,
His giant wings prevent him from walking.

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Simply amazing. again I can't wait to find out more about this guy and what drove him to write things as beautiful as this.


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On a more personal note, I really like people. It fascinates me that every person that I pass is an individual mind with a separate soul, with its own desires and dreams. It's fun to think what exactly may go on in other peoples minds. I think that we would be surprised at how similar everyone is. Whatever the case I was walking from class back to my dorm on a particularly cold and blustery day this winter, when I passed a woman who stuck out in an impressive way. She was wearing a jacket wit a blue furry hood which looked nice by itself, but what was remarkable was her face. It was flushed with the most remarkable shade of cherry-red that I had ever witnessed It wasn't the red of someone who was overworked or out of breath, but the red of someone full of life and invigorated by her surroundings. I wasn't even particularly attracted to her in any way, it was just amazing how red her face was. I considered it for a while before writing down this little ditty. I like the first title better, the second one refers to the fact that it was the fault of construction on campus that had forced our paths together at that specific time.

The Wind!

Or,

Passed by in a bottleneck

How harsh it strikes against her face,

It blows in from the north.

Her cheeks turn cherry red in place,

She timidly strikes forth.

It is a million blowing souls,

All striving to be warm.

And filled with, her hood, it bowls,

And gives her face its form.

So, scarlet tint or not, she goes,

With rapid steps on frozen toes.

She sets out through the campus-ground,

Commanding eyes and walking sound.

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As far as sonnets go it's O.K. I guess.