I've lost touch with my poetic side it seems. — Agent Smith

No nay, nivver! You can play the wild rover for many a year...or drama queen, whatever...

Your profile shows some good quotes:

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
— Philip K. Dick

John Stewart wrote "Daydream Believer" as the third in a trilogy of songs about suburban life,[3] recalling: "I remember going to bed thinking, 'What a wasted day — all I’ve done is daydream.' And from there I wrote the whole song. I never thought it was one of my best songs. Not at all".[4]

If you can't sing, then lip-synch :wink:

Oh, I could hide 'neath the wings
Of the bluebird as she sings
The six o'clock alarm would never ring
But it rings, and I rise
Wipe the sleep out of my eyes
My shavin' razor's cold and it stings

Cheer up, sleepy Jean
Oh, what can it mean
To a daydream believer
And a homecoming queen?

You once thought of me
As a white knight on his steed
Now, you know how happy I can be
Oh, and our good times start and end
Without dollar one to spend
But how much, baby, do we really need

What do you feel now when you read that poem?
Would you really want to re-experience the original moment in time?
Or can you see it both from the past and in the present as something special?

I ask because I think I was a bit insensitive when I said I loved your poem in response.
The negative feelings compared to the positive connection...isn't what I loved, just the way you expressed yourself.

...there was a connection there between the poem, the poet, and me but it's lost now. Too bad, I wish I could go back about 30 years ago and re-read the poem and re-experience those emotions again.

Numinous,
Back then it was,
Now,
Like a spent candle,
Nothing!
— Mad Fool/Agent Smith — Amity

mine-sweeping [*]

we fall and rise
in foreign fields
sown and planted
with blood, sweat and tears. Boom.

meaningless mines metred
lie still unexplored
til the sign, the sound
of pop, high tones groan. Bang!

what do we find
as we plough the fields
and scatter the good
hoarded coins, discarded cans. Bank.

life near dead, decomposing
from hunger and greed
pathways stolen
seeds stamped not growing. Blank.

demining the demeaning
we dig for victory
what fellow-kind do we find
in the rise and fall of foreign fields...

Just "Grow your own veg, Frank!"

--------

[*]

The deminers, part of the 113th Kharkiv Defense Brigade of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces, walked deep into fallow agricultural lands on Thursday along a muddy road between fields of dead sunflowers overgrown with high weeds. [...]
“One year of war equals 10 years of demining,” Dokuchaev said. “Even now we are still finding munitions from World War II, and in this war they’re being planted left and right.” — Guardian

Throughout the Spring of 2022, Kiyanovska has posted poems to her facebook page about those regions most affected by Russia’s full-scale invasion. Here too Kiyanovska highlights the collectivity of a “multilevel I.” One poem assumes a child’s voice to describe a missile strike in lines that are all the more brutal for their childish rhyme scheme and rhythm:

it’s our very last moment of silence
we’ve already had four
Three times since this morning: sirens
we all ran out the door
we knew Tanya’d run ahead
but the bomb buried everyone
Tanya, missing a leg, lies dead
still in kindergarten

це наша остання хвилина мовчання
до того було чотири
сирени вмикалися тричі з рання
ми вийшли всі із квартири
а таня ми знали побігла перша
та бомба усіх накрила
таня лежить без ноги і вмерша
вона ще в дитсад ходила

OK. That's enough I think. Kinda makes Brian Bilston's 'Serenity Prayer' look small...

More from Ukraine.
Interesting translation notes re phonetic associaton. Also, a new understanding of identity:

Kiyanovska has recently written ekphrastic poems based on Khrystyna Valko’s digital graphic poster art. One poem accompanies a portrait of a heart, trapped in a brick wall, an homage to Mariupol:

серце впіймане в біль виною
сто п’ятнадцятий день війни
між душею і чужиною
маріупольські бур’яни
з-під асфальту попроростали

the heart trapped in guilt-pain
war’s hundred fifteenth day
between soul and stranger
Mariupol’s weeds
sprouted from the asphalt

This Mariupol is a violated, animate being. It is a body with blood, tears, and veins, dismembered and profaned by the atrocities of war. These lines open with the phonetic association between “guilt” (vyna) and “war” (viina). The string of painful images, lacking any punctuation, approximates the emotional pace of perceiving the city’s unfathomable losses. Another recent poem accompanies Valko’s poster to encourage blood donation. Kiyanovska reduces language to its simplest connections, using the verbal associations of blood and love to redraw the meaning of a Ukrainian community, one connected through the act of giving blood: “‘donor’ can translate to ‘love’”.

The “multilevel I” that Kiyanovska attempted to articulate with her Babyn Yar cycle in 2017 has become a way of understanding kinship among linguistically, geographically, and ethnically diverse Ukrainians in a time of war. Kiyanovska’s ongoing poetics describes a radically new understanding of identity: today, she asserts, Ukrainians should not be bound by ethnic blood-lines, but rather (tragically, heroically) by spilled blood. This is part ten in a series on contemporary poetry from Ukraine.

[...]

the heart trapped in guilt-pain
war’s hundred fifteenth day
between soul and stranger
Mariupol’s weeds
sprouted from the asphalt
hung from the veins
“Azovstal” dead suburbs up
to the horizon oxygen
in crematoria just-baked
blackened teeth and fingers
dead human – and stork-nests
the silence of a sharp shrill sound
shatters the walls today
the walls are writhing blood flows
from acacia blossoms
rising like a mustering of storks
a homeless windowpane broken
infinite black holes
they wanted to live in this city
and of course to love
and now there’s only air water
salty from the tears
no freedom in these ruins
just the carcasses of suitcases

(2022)

— "

From: https://lithub.com/february-get-the-ink-and-weep-contemporary-poetry-from-ukraine/

Three Poems by Iya Kiva, Translated by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk

Although she has increasingly shifted toward writing in Ukrainian, her poems are rich with references to Russian literature (in one poem below she cites Pasternak’s 1912 line, “February. Get the ink and weep.”) Kiva’s war poems describe a young country desperately clutching life.

–Amelia Glaser, Cambridge, MA
This is the first in a series featuring contemporary poetry from Ukraine.

*

Three poems by Iya Kiva (b. 1984)

This coffin’s for you, little boy, don’t be afraid, lie down,
A bullet called life clutched tight in your fist,

We didn’t believe in death, look – the crosses are tinfoil.
Do you hear – all the bell towers tore out their tongues?

We won’t forget you, believe it, believe it, be …
Belief bleeds down the seam inside your sleeve,

Chants, prayers, psalms swell up in a lump in your throat
In the middle of this damned winter all dressed in khaki,

And February, getting the ink, is sobbing.
And the candle drips on the table, burning and burning…

Translated from the Russian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk, 2014

*

and when it came my turn to be killed
everyone started to speak Lithuanian
everyone started to call me Yanukas
summoned me hither to their native land

my god I said I am not Lithuanian
my god I told them I said it in Yiddish
my god I told them I said it in Russian
my god I said to them in Ukrainian

there where the Kalmius flows into the Neman
a child is crying in a church

Translated from the Russian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk, 2016

*

to hold a needle of silence in your mouth
to stitch your words in white thread
to whimper while drowning in spit
to keep from screaming spitting blood
to hold the water of a language on your tongue
which leaks like a rusty bucket
to mend things that are still useful
to sew crosses on the really weak spots
like bandages on the wounded in a hospital
to learn to search for the roots of a life
that has yet to learn its name

Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk, 2019

____________________________

Iya Kiva is a poet, translator, and journalist living in Kyiv, Ukraine. She is the author of two volumes of poetry, Further from Heaven (Podal’she ot raya, 2018) and The First Page of Winter (Persha storinka zimy, 2019), and the recipient of numerous awards for her poetry and translation.

Amelia Glaser is Associate Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at U.C. San Diego. She is the author of Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary Borderlands (2012) and Songs in Dark Times: Yiddish Poetry of Struggle from Scottsboro to Palestine (2020).

Yuliya Ilchuk is Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Stanford University. She is the author of Nikolai Gogol: Performing Hybrid Identity (2021).

It reminds me of a previous discussion where I highlighted the use of poetry as communicating first-hand War experience, when some truths were blocked from the public. — Amity

It makes me wonder about any poems coming out of current conflicts, like Ukraine.
Or even Russia, or other places where the truth might be censored @Jamal, anyone?
Perhaps too soon for that...too busy experiencing the raw first-hand...

Too carried away with poetry, I realised I hadn't paid attention to the OP:

I chose Brian Bilston because he's contemporary, accessible, and writes in a style that is easily recognizable as poetry.

Philosophically speaking I want to contrast this with truth-conditions as a means for bringing out what else there is in meaning, especially in discussing meaning. — Moliere

I found this very long article about 'Poetry and Truth' while looking for Goethe and his poetry.
It reminds me of a previous discussion where I highlighted the use of poetry as communicating first-hand War experience, when some truths were blocked from the public.

I didn't see it as a 'moral' dimension as described below, but yes, something to consider:

Poets, like journalists, historians, are after the truth. But what kind of truth, exactly, do we find in poetry?
[..]
The tension between poetry and truth gave Goethe the title of his autobiography, Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit (“From My Life: Poetry and Truth”), written between 1811 and 1833. W. H. Auden borrowed Goethe’s title in 1959 for a prose sequence on love, and, in 1977, the poet Anthony Hecht (a great admirer of both poets) took the same title for a poem in which he considers, among other things, Goethe, the Second World War, and the thorny relationship between truth and art. Hecht conveyed the truth of his war experience as a poet not as a journalist or historian. [*]
[...]
When Goethe takes “Poetry and Truth” as the title of his autobiography, what he is suggesting in part, I think, is that experience, in a work of art, may be rendered most clearly, and in a sense most truthfully, by attending to something beyond the verifiable facts. Fine, you might say, but doesn’t art, then, become, as Jacques Maritain wrote, “a world apart, closed, limited, absolute”—not the apprehension of reality but a replacement for reality, an illusion? This was a mote to trouble the mind’s eye of Plato.
[...]
For Winters, poetry—and, in its concision, lyric poetry, especially—is the highest linguistic form because, taken together, connotation and denotation compose the “total content” of language. It’s true that the two exist together in other kinds of writing, a novel, say, but poetry, by dint of its meters, lines, and highly wrought rhythms, modulates feeling with the greatest control.
Connotation in poetry, then, acquires what Winters thinks of as a “moral” dimension. In order to render human experience truthfully, connotation or “feeling” must be precisely managed:

The artistic process is one of moral evaluation of human experience, by means of a technique which renders possible an evaluation more precise than any other. The poet tries to understand his experience in rational terms, to state his understanding, and simultaneously to state, by means of the feelings we attach to words, the kind and degree of emotion that should properly be motivated by this understanding.
The term “moral,” then, refers—at least in this instance—to a fairly technical process of selecting the best words in the best order for a given subject. “In so far as the rational statement is understandable and acceptable, and in so far as the feeling is properly motivated by the rational statement, the poem will be good,” he tells us. — Poetry and Truth by David Jezzi - The New Criterion

[emphasis added]

--------

[*] Hecht. A snippet from later in the article:

This challenge creates the underlying tension in Hecht’s most famous poem of the Holocaust, which takes its title from Goethe’s dying words, “More Light! More Light!”:

We move now to outside a German wood.
Three men are there commanded to dig a hole
In which the two Jews are ordered to lie down
And be buried alive by the third, who is a Pole.

Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill
Nor light from heaven appeared. But he did refuse.
A Luger settled back deeply in its glove.
He was ordered to change places with the Jews.

Much casual death had drained away their souls.
The thick dirt mounted toward the quivering chin.
When only the head was exposed the order came
To dig him out again and to get back in.

No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.
When he finished a riding boot packed down the earth.
The Luger hovered lightly in its glove.
He was shot in the belly and in three hours bled to death.

No prayers or incense rose up in those hours
Which grew to be years, and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

Hecht did not witness this scene at Buchenwald—it was not true for him in this sense—but takes it from a book by the historian and survivor Eugen Kogon. Even so, the scene resonates very directly with his own life. Hecht’s infantry company was present at the liberation of Flossenbürg at end of the war. As he later explained in an interview, Flossenbürg... — Poetry and Truth

I just get to things when I get to them.... — Moliere

Good thinking. It can be overwhelming.

Thanks for:

Leaves fall
Leaves pile up;
Rain ... beats on rain. — Gyōdai

***

Simply sums up the spirit of Autumn.
I searched and guess where I found it?...
(worth repeating)

Some 'Mad Fool' responding to @javi2541997
Yet another thread: Philosophical Poems! Thanks again to @T Clark.

The only Haiku poetry I can remember from my youth is,

Leaves fall
And pile up;
Rain beats on rain.
— Gyōdai

There was a connection there between the poem, the poet, and me but it's lost now. Too bad, I wish I could go back about 30 years ago and re-read the poem and re-experience those emotions again.

Numinous,
Back then it was,
Now,
Like a spent candle,
Nothing! — Mad Fool Agent Smith

Love it :fire:

'Poem Meaning' started by @Moliere :fire:
Poems mean a lot. To some. Others are open to persuasion. Perhaps even to inspiration...

@tim wood introduced me to a whole lot of new things - always grateful for the sparks :sparkle:

For example: this book:

From: 'Creating Poetry' - John Drury
Ch XI - Other Arts, Other Influences, p184

Poems can imitate musical forms.
Michael Harper uses jazz as both inspiration and subject matter in poems such as 'Dear John, Dear Coltrane' and 'A Love Supreme' ( title of Coltrane's four movement masterpiece).
— Drury

The music:
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme [Full Album] (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll3CMgiUPuU — Amity

This thread is excellent. The different perspectives and preferences. The conversation about translation. I'm listening and learning, thanks to all.

I think @T Clark mentioned another poetry discussion with a different slant. I'd forgotten about it but searched there for a memorable poem posted by @tim wood':

Robert Frost, Emily Dickenson, e. e. cummings. These three worth the dime obtaining complete collections of their poetry, usually in one volume, for long-term browsing. And worth a quick look at reviews of collections.
[...]
Another poem of his I like, for a certain visceral vividness, that's longer, is Home Burial, here.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53086/home-burial — tim wood

[Unfortunately, tim seems to have taken a lengthy break...for whatever reason. Hope all is well.]

Many other fantastic and helpful contributions and connections made. Worth a read,

Talking of poems about poems--and apologies to Moliere if this is off-topic--I recently read the "The Thought Fox" by Ted Hughes. It's a poem about writing poems, or about creativity, and foxes: — Jamal

Thank you. It's not off-topic at all.
I enjoyed the poem very much.

And this blank page where my fingers move.

The blank page like a blanket of snow, you know you want to make your mark.

Sets neat prints into the snow

The foxy writer typing or writing in the snow...hopefully not with yellow fluid.

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

The creative process. The increasing awareness of something about to come into focus.

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

Wow. Is this what it is like for you and other authors?
What an amazing experience.
It reminds me of midwifery and Socrates. Creative and productive philosophy in art.

Wonderful. Thank you. — T Clark

A real pleasure. I thank you for the introduction :sparkle:

Turns out she is the granddaughter of a good friend of Yeat's, so I think it's likely he does care for her and knows her fairly well. — T Clark

This is a fascinating 2003 interview with 'Anne Gregory', then Anne de Winton in her mid-80's, living in Devon:

As Nanno brought in the china cups and cream cakes, I recited a verse of Yeats's poem to her:

Never shall a young man
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts of your ear . . .

But she interrupted me. "I thought it was doggerel at first and was not impressed. It was not as romantic as I would have liked it." But when Yeats publicly announced the publication of the poem and described the young Anne as "having hair like a cornfield in the sun", she warmed to it. As Nanno served the tea, de Winton recited the rest of it in a soft, still discernibly Irish voice.

"It all started," she said, "when Yeats sent a message at Coole for me to go down to his sitting room as he had just written a poem called 'Yellow Hair' which he had dedicated to me. He then proceeded to read it aloud in his humming voice.

"We would hear him humming away for hours while he wrote his verses. He used to hum the rhythm of the verse before he wrote the words. Grandma told us that was why his poems were so good to read aloud.

"But on this occasion, I was petrified. I had no idea that he was going to write a poem for me. It was agony. I was nearly in tears for fear of doing something silly."

[...]

Then, somewhat wistfully, she said, "I often think now of those years at Coole. They were the happiest years of my life. I can always see that wonderful clear light of Galway."
Anne de Winton has known tragedy as well as happiness in her 85 years - the loss of her father, then the loss of her husband in the second World War.

And one suspects another, more tenuous loss - that of her Anglo-Irish identity.

Her house, with its books and letters, is her only link now to a vanished past. Few people in the area know who she is. — The Irish Times - Yeats's girl with the yellow hair

A dual identity. Anglo-Irish. Fair enough?

The Englishness of a fair maiden.
— Amity

Irish, if that makes any difference. — T Clark

Poetic licence.

Another from that section:

A POEM WITH NO ‘M’
A poem
With no ‘m’
Is just called a poe,
Don’t you knoe.

- Bilston

Just curious, is there a poem about poems? — Agent Smith

If there aren't any, then you could make one up, non?

There's a section, here:
https://brianbilston.com/category/poems-about-poems/

POETS’ CORNER
there’s lots of poets
round our way,
can’t move for ’em
(though I should like to).
not so handy
should there be a fire,
a traffic accident,
or an unexpected
celery stick-up job
at the wholefood store,
but should your
iambic pentameter
get broke
and need mendin’
these folk
are the ones
to send in.

I'm not sure I like this one. It's almost saying that poets are useless and can't do anything else other than write and theorise about poetry...or that firemen would rather pick up a hose and have no nose for anything else.

I must be missing something...a rant against poets from academia?

Hmm. The title is 'Poets' Corner'.
Perhaps a poetic drift to 'Speakers' Corner' ?
https://www.royalparks.org.uk/parks/hyde-park/things-to-see-and-do/speakers-corner

Poets' Corner: a lot of dead poets. See wiki.
These worthies had their moments in the sun.

I want share another poem with you:

[He] said:
“the sea used to come here”
And [he] put more wood on the fire. Ozaki Hōsai.

This haiku poem gives me nostalgia because the author is missing something that is no longer with him: the sea. — javi2541997

Thanks for reminding me of haiku; how it is expressed and felt.
Yes, there is a sense of loss and nostalgia for how things used to be. Loneliness.
But also a weary acceptance of life as it is. Finding small comfort in the warmth of the fire.
No direct mention of the chopping of the wood...'Chop wood, carry water'...but it's there.
Perceptions of everyday life.

'He said:' - to himself? Perhaps, and yet the poem reaches out to others...

I looked up a few of the masters and topics of Love and Cats. Just for fun:
https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2021/02/best-love-haiku/

Kobayashi Issa
One of the four great haiku masters of Japan, along with Basho, Buson and Shiki, Kobayashi Issa was a poet and a Buddhist priest living and writing in the late 18 and early 19 centuries. He is one of the most humorous haiku poets of the times, punctuating the classical haiku musings with witty remarks. No wonder he wrote about lover cats, snails climbing Mount Fuji, or just deadpan not caring about the New Year. He wrote more than 20.000 haiku poems, half of which are translated by David G. Lanoue and available online. Here are two of his cat love haikus:

こがれ猫恋気ちがいと見ゆる也
(kogare neko koi kichigai to miyuru nari)

The pining cat
is smitten with love madness
most probably

(translation: Zoria P. K. )

有明や家なし猫も恋を鳴
(ariake ya ie nashi neko mo koi wo naku)

at dawn
the homeless cat, too
cries for love

(translation: David G. Lanoue)

And a spring haiku that signifies friendship and community, the beauty of shared joys, as well as a possible budding romance:

花の陰赤の他人はなかりけり
(hana no kage aka no tanin wa nakari keri)

Under the cherry blossoms
strangers are not
really strangers

(translation: Zoria P. K.)

"For Anne Gregory" by W.B Yeats.

Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair."
I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair — T Clark

A quick first read and thoughts:
Who is Anne Gregory? Someone Yeats cares for. He speaks to her and there is a conversation about love and its conditions.
Young men are attracted by the visual. They fall in love with appearance. Culture dependent.
The Englishness of a fair maiden. Long hair tumbling from the turrets of a castle, waiting for her hero to save her and they all live happily ever after.

'Great honey-coloured Ramparts at your ear'.
A mass of sweet seduction.
'Ramparts' suggest an external barrier, defence or gateway.
'At your ear' - a veil hanging down or styled as Princess Leia in 'Star Wars'?
The outer beauty - another wall - not hearing or heeding the internal aspects of a person.

Anne wants to be loved for herself. Changing hair colour or style not to please the current male gaze but to suit herself. A challenge or test set. Or it could be her defence against love or lust.

Next up, the view of traditional religion. Only God loves you for who you are. The Bible tells us so.
Is this an effort at converting the young woman? Will she become a nun?
Will she in turn be 'in despair', seduced to holiness?
Another kind of sense. Spiritual. Non-physical.
Another kind of wall to hide behind. A golden cage...

That's a wonderful one. In part it shows polarity really well since the words are the same, just being read in a different order. But also I like the parenthetical reminder to "read thoughts backwards", not necessarily as a dialectic but at a more personal, "inner monologue" level it's often good to reverse negative mind-worms. — Moliere

Yes, it took me by surprise when I read his opening words:

They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers — Brian Bilston - Refugees

I thought that doesn't sound like him ( from the little I know).
'Chancers and scroungers. Layabouts and loungers' - a Tory rant if ever there was one. They don't look in the mirror much...the lounging of arrogant Rees-Mogg...

“...with his body language throughout this evening has been so contemptuous of this house and of the people,” [...]
Rees-Mogg had been “spread across three seats, lying out as if that was something very boring to listen to tonight”. — The Guardian - 'Sit up'

***

With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from — Brian Bilston - Refugees

The depiction of refugees as a danger to us, to be sent back or further afield is one still running its course. Even as we see the plight of multitudes running from war, famine or more.
What is the truth? What do we feel when we read the words? I think 'hate-filled Tories' but perhaps I'm wrong...

They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries — Brian Bilston - Refugees

Why not? Is it fear that our resources are not enough, even for us? Who sets the boundaries of plenty and famine? God? What are the causes of want and scarcity that we must flee or fight over land to survive? What might be the solutions...?
So far, this poem throws out difficult political and philosophical questions...

Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way — Brian Bilston - Refugees

'Build a wall'. The answer to everything, huh? We can think of so many walls separating people, even families within the same country. Berlin 1961-1989.
The promise is a vote-winner, the becoming of President Trump.
Israel's Wall:

In 2002, Israel started constructing the wall, slicing through Palestinian communities, agricultural fields, and farmland at the height of the second Intifada.
The wall has been described by Israeli officials as a necessary security precaution against “terrorism”. — Al Jazeera - Israel's illegal separation wall still divides

The poem tells us that we are stupid if we look at the world another way.
Is that true? 'A place should only belong to those who are born there'?
What a narrow and self-limiting space to be.

(now read from bottom to top) — Brian Bilston - Refugees

And then, the surprising flip.
To look again and find the opposite word view. Benevolence and compassion to fellow human beings.
The poem is a wonderful construction.
Two sides of the wall. Two sides to every question. Can dialectics change the way we think?
Can poetry? Art means awareness. The art of @Moliere's reversing of negative mind worms. :up:

Some Tories still dream of sending migrants to Rwanda...other parties are appalled.

Speaking on the final day of her own party conference, Sturgeon said: “My dream is very different.

“My dream is that we live in a world where those fleeing violence and oppression are shown compassion and treated like human beings — not shown the door and bundled on to planes like unwanted cargo.” — Huffington Post - UK Politics

We all have our dreams...or nightmares...

Refugees. Turn them around. To see 'these haggard faces could belong to you or me, should life have dealt a different hand'.

I am working towards my responses, though I've been reading as these moves along and digesting. I am in the middle of a big transition as we are moving into a new space, so my focus is on getting through the big pieces of that while it's right in front of me and then I'll be able to bring more energy and focus into being apart of the conversations here. — Universal Student

OK. It sounds like you have a lot on your plate. I hope you will be able to pick up earlier questions and respond. It's difficult when the flow is broken. Almost like passing a window of opportunity.

In my writing, hmm... I've been writing so long I can't remember how it felt when I started. I know how it feels now - just like talking. Words flow out like water from a hose, sometimes a firehose. I don't always pay attention to what comes out until I go back and edit later. The right word just feels right. If one comes out that doesn't feel right, I change it. I'll often to go the thesaurus to find a better one. I tend to be very aware of the structure of what I'm writing, even while I'm writing. The flow. The arc. Where it starts, where it ends, how it gets there. The story I'm telling, even in a post like this one. This one's easy. You asked for examples, I'll give you examples. Good and linear with no side spurs. — T Clark

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

Yes, it's difficult to rewind to particular moments when something clicks in your brain in the learning process. Whether it is in acts of reading, writing, listening...the consumption or the production.

I remember the transition from manual to keyboard writing. For a while, it seemed my brain couldn't adapt to transferring thoughts to a screen. I had to write the text out, then copy it word for word.
Then, the pathways changed. Voila! It was like a new awareness, a connection...
The words flowed easier.

When I was first introduced to a philosophy forum, I lurked for so long. Being out of my comfort zone, that first post felt like quite the achievement. A leap of faith. It took time to find my voice. Even yet, I write posts and cringe. That's not me. Why did I write that?!
The bits I miss when reading and responding to others. My own laziness and reluctance to relate what might be uncomfortable. And so on. Pretty boring stuff really...

Unlike you, I am not so aware of structure in my responsive posts. And yes, my OPs suffer from a lack of attention to requirements. I write before, or as, I think...almost spontaneously.

Re: paying attention. I found this article on the merits of handwriting:

Do children in a keyboard world need to learn old-fashioned handwriting?
There is a tendency to dismiss handwriting as a nonessential skill, even though researchers have warned that learning to write may be the key to, well, learning to write.

Virginia Berninger, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington and the lead author on the study [...] suggests that “handwriting — forming letters — engages the mind, and that can help children pay attention to written language.”
[...]
As a pediatrician, I think this may be another case where we should be careful that the lure of the digital world doesn’t take away significant experiences that can have real impacts on children’s rapidly developing brains. Mastering handwriting, messy letters and all, is a way of making written language your own, in some profound ways.

“My overarching research focuses on how learning and interacting with the world with our hands has a really significant effect on our cognition,” Dr. James said, “on how writing by hand changes brain function and can change brain development.” — NY Times- Why Handwriting is Still Essential

There are so many aspects to the OP questions, I think it best to leave it here.
Even though I would like to respond to your post more fully...particularly with regard to emotional awareness. Again, thanks for sharing examples, each of which would merit its own thread!

Why, merci beaucoup mon ami! — Agent Smith

De rien :cool:

It's time for some psychotropics (drugs). — Agent Smith

Stay well and take care :pray:

I have a poor memory! Things are falling apart — Agent Smith

I wish we could do Self-Maintenance...'How to Fix a Brain'.
I can't remember. Have you written anything in this discussion about the OP?

Not before that, then :cry:

Are you following me about?! :lol:

I'll respond, but it's taking me some time to figure out what I want to say. — T Clark

OK :up:

Obviously, then, I have no self-awareness whatsoever.

I think I should be celebrated as one such to be first on a philosophy site. — god must be atheist

Hah. Sorry but no glittering first prize for you, dear

Member of Mensa, and a lapsed member of The International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, which is a club for people in the 99.9th percentile of population by IQ. ISPE removed me from membership and are not letting me back in due to personal misconduct. I swore at officials without cause.

Your SA level is equal to, if not higher than, your IQ!
Genius :fire:

Brian Bilston

REFUGEES
They have no need of our help
So do not tell me
These haggard faces could belong to you or me
Should life have dealt a different hand
We need to see them for who they really are
Chancers and scroungers
Layabouts and loungers
With bombs up their sleeves
Cut-throats and thieves
They are not
Welcome here
We should make them
Go back to where they came from
They cannot
Share our food
Share our homes
Share our countries
Instead let us
Build a wall to keep them out
It is not okay to say
These are people just like us
A place should only belong to those who are born there
Do not be so stupid to think that
The world can be looked at another way

(now read from bottom to top)

— Brian Bilston - Refugees

I looked it up for a read to compare, and apparently there's different versions. So, in a way -- rather than a rift, this is more like variations on a theme. From ye olde wiki, though, just for a side-by-side: — Moliere

For comparison, I think the short (pocket-size) version is better to read aloud and remember.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Reading it aloud, definitely makes me feel the "giggliness" of the Limerick form, though, in comparison. — Moliere

'It' being the long, tedious and passive version. After that, anything would be 'light'!
However, Brian's poem is far from a giggly Limerick - I think you know that, right?!
He does have a talent for inserting a slice of humour into the dry, daily bread.

Intrigued by this 'new' poet, I discovered the inspiration for the poem, posted in Oct 18, 2019:

He recently tweeted two new poems about the very different world in which we are all living.
"There's an old expression: may you live in interesting times," said Bilston. "On the surface it seems like a pleasant thing to wish for. After all, who would want life to be dull and unremarkable?

"But the phrase actually gets used as a curse. And you'd be harder pressed to find a greater example of why than the last few weeks and months."

In these strange, unsettling and frightening times, Bilston said that it made him appreciate all those sweet, blessed, uninteresting days that passed by with barely a murmur. His yearning for normality spawned 'Serenity Prayer'. — CBC Radio - There's Poetry for Any Occasion

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-for-october-20-2019-1.5325821/there-s-poetry-for-any-occasion-even-a-pandemic-just-ask-twitter-s-unofficial-poet-laureate-1.5325832

The pandemic affected us all. I wish I'd found Brian Bilston (a poet with a pseudonym) back then.
Better late than never. The poem remains relevant. Easy on the eye and ear.

I meant to mention the title: 'The Serenity Prayer'. The original version I love ( minus the God reference).
Used in AA meetings, I believe. Perhaps, Brian and others, like myself, have been addicted to the news and now it's become painfully overwhelming. We need a break. A retreat.
I will copy this poem and, hopefully, memorise it.
I think that is the beauty of a short poem, like this. It can act as a mantra.

I pulled the following from Brian Bilston's Laboetry: — Moliere

Thanks for the introduction. Most enjoyable :up:

It seems, at the very least, that poetic meaning is open -- there's no problem with having multiple interpretations, in fact that's what you'd expect. — Moliere

Indeed. Brian is sharing his feelings and hits the nail on the head. We get it, immediately.

Although, with the passing of time, the Murder She Wrote reference becomes more about nostalgia or a remembrance of simpler times. — Tom Storm

I laughed at that bit. I binge-watched Murder She Wrote for a while as a way to mindlessness.
With Brian's 'consumption of wine', it conjures up a cosy, warm, numbing.
Currently, watching American slushy Christmassy films for the same reason!
What's with all the cookies?

The rhythm of the first two lines in each verse reminds me of something heard before.
Possibly a pop song or an advert...
Something along the lines of 'This is not just food. This is M&S food'.
No, it's a jingly kind of pop.
Ah, got it!
The Bangles...
It's just another manic Monday (Woah, woah)
I wish it was Sunday (Woah, woah)
'Cause that's my fun day (Woah, woah, woah, woah)
My I don't have to run day (Woah, woah)
It's just another manic Monday

I'll try to describe how it feels for me to become aware of something. The first time I remember doing that was while learning Tai Chi. I was having trouble with a move, so I kept doing it over and over. I tried to focus not only on the movements, but how the movements felt in my body. I would ask my teacher "what's it supposed to feel like?" Tai Chi for me has to do with the movement of power through my body, so I would ask "What is the power supposed to do?" — T Clark

I had a similar but not quite so intense an experience in Pilates.
I needed to know how to think about the movement and what it was supposed to achieve.
How to engage the toes, for goodness sake!

Then I felt something again, I always call it a "tickle." When I paid close attention to that feeling it grew and came into focus. It was a feeling in my body - the muscles, balance, stress - I had not been aware of. After enough practice, it became natural to be aware in that way. That experience and awareness was helpful in working on other moves.

Since then, I've found a similar process takes place in other areas of awareness - intellectual, physical, emotional, social... I guess that's awareness of awareness. — T Clark

Intriguing, this 'tickle'. I'm trying to remember what my 'feeling' was. I think more of an energy 'trickle'?
Sometimes a bit sparkish or sparklish...dunno :chin:
As you say, it's difficult to describe!
I'd like to hear more if you wish, about the effects of this practice in other areas of self-development.
For example, in your writing?

Lack of confidence, being too self-conscious are hurdles to overcome.
— Amity

Now here is something intriguing, or perhaps it is just a matter of accretions of meaning in different contexts ... you seem to be saying that self-consciousness is a barrier to self-awareness. Now I'm wondering what that could mean? — unenlightened

Appreciate the follow-up to something I hadn't thought of as 'intriguing' when I wrote it.
What was the lead-up to this idea? I need to backtrack:

I question my inner voice: Is that right, is that really what I think?
It's a wonder anything gets posted at all...actually, things posted have been self-edited and deleted!

And that brings me to confidence and I guess to the OP question. How to develop SA, the barriers, etc.
Lack of confidence, being too self-conscious are hurdles to overcome.
If writing is one of the many tools to develop SA, then all the more reason to value it.
Words matter.

Being creative and productive matters. Even if nobody listens or responds.
It is a way to find your self, your voice in relation to others. — Amity

So, how can too much self-consciousness be a barrier to self-awareness?
I'd been thinking of writing as a tool to develop SA; the way we grow ourselves by thinking and sharing.
The external and internal obstacles in our path, including our inner voice. The ongoing dialogue which we pay more or less attention to.

I mentioned that it's a wonder anything gets posted due to the self-questioning related to a lack of confidence. [*]. Too much 'self-consciousness' can lead to paralysis; we stop in our tracks.
If this becomes a permanent feature of our being, our personality, then how are we to develop?

I was also thinking of the 'creative spirit'...and how that can be squashed or not given space.
If we are labelled or self-label as non-creatives, then that is a major kill-off!

The idea of some kind of invisible 'flow' or 'energy' between mind and body is important to consider.
How aware are we of what is, or is not, going on...?

When the creative spirit stirs, it animates a style of being: a lifetime filled with the desire to innovate, to explore new ways of doing things, to bring dreams of reality.
[...]
While in a flow state, people lose all self-consciousness. The Zen idea of no-mind is similar: a state of complete absorption is what one is doing.

The idea of merging with the activity at hand, which is basic to flow, is intrinsic to Zen. "It's taught in Zen that one performs an action so completely that one loses oneself in the doing of it," Kraft explains. "A master calligrapher, for example, is working in a no-minded way." — The Art of Creativity - Psychology Today

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/199203/the-art-creativity

An excellent article, worth exploring, I think.
Think back to building blocks for children; naturally building new empires! And themselves...
Different sets of blocks; different levels of awareness.

[*]

The “self conscious” is a label for those who habitual react with activation of their fight or flight response - a potentially overwhelming anxiety at being trapped by scrutinising judgement. A fear of being exposed to a room of critics.

Others more confident or extrovert may feel some very different physiological reaction. Aha, a chance to put my “self” on show for all to appreciate! — apokrisis

Excellent explanation, thanks.
Appreciate your 'show' :up:

I lie awake in the dark, and very gradually it dawns on me. That is to say, I notice the lightening of the sky. but all my description is of the sky of my developing experience of the sky, not my developing experience of what awareness itself is like. — unenlightened

Clever. You become aware of a gradual change; enlightenment from both a physical and mental 'darkness' or a not-knowing. You are awake. You are describing to yourself, in an internal dialogue, your sense of how the sky changes. You liken the lightening sky to your mental state enlightening. Are they the same kind of thing? It seems not. You can't put into words how your 'dawning' is happening.
And yet, you did.
Or at least, what you wrote seems to indicate a high level of self-awareness (SA)
I would say that your SA has been developed by the practice of writing.
I might even go further and suggest that SA is key to being a compelling writer.
They are intertwined.

My theme for the thread has been to distinguish (particularly verbal) thought from awareness. This is naturally rather hard to do in words, and inclined to provoke resistance and incomprehension from thinking verbal minds that dominate philosophy. — unenlightened

I think we might be talking about different kinds of awareness. My focus has been on SA, inseparable from thought. If any TPF reader fails to comprehend words or thoughts about awareness, it is not necessarily because there is resistance. Often, the confusion lies in different definitions or meanings.
Or habitual ways of thinking. We can talk past each other and end up :chin: :brow: :smirk:
When what should be happening is accepting questions and trying to respond as best we can.
Even if we still disagree, that's fine. We've explored and the sun still shines :cool:

I remember being aware as I wrote that last sentence, that it would likely be confusing, and I am aware as I write this one that I may not be clarifying things much. — unenlightened

This shows the great benefit and challenges of writing.
Previously, I've written that I sometimes don't know what I think until I write.
Even as I write, there is a general background awareness or knowledge that whatever is produced can be changed, misinterpreted or misunderstood.
I question my inner voice: Is that right, is that really what I think?
It's a wonder anything gets posted at all...actually, things posted have been self-edited and deleted!

And that brings me to confidence and I guess to the OP question. How to develop SA, the barriers, etc.
Lack of confidence, being too self-conscious are hurdles to overcome.
If writing is one of the many tools to develop SA, then all the more reason to value it.
Words matter.

Being creative and productive matters. Even if nobody listens or responds.
It is a way to find your self, your voice in relation to others.
Check-in to your state of mind...or awareness...in the moment.
Some call that mindfulness...it can be therapeutic.

The way the brain is wired means that arriving sense data will be allowed to trigger the simple emission of learnt habits to the degree is slots right into a state of prediction. That takes a fifth of a second or less. Then where something is unexpected or requires reorientation, then the brain squashes the habitual response to kick it upstairs for a full attentive response. That takes about half a second to arrive at a new state of intention and readiness. — apokrisis

I love this almost poetic description and the timings, how are they arrived at?

Self awareness thus would have to start in getting used to noticing how we have been interacting. Or indeed, pay attention to the rationalisations that likely have always supported our habitual responses. We might have victim thinking or other habits ingrained since childhood. — apokrisis

That makes complete sense.
Developing a keen observation of thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Asking relevant questions.
Also trying to understand any reasons, conscious or subconscious. Keeping an eye on internal dialogue...helpful or harmful. Paying attention to mind/body interaction.

Then to change a habit, you must bring attention back to what you are doing automatically. And because your habits move at a faster pace, they can be slippery buggers. — apokrisis

:rofl:

Thanks for all your most informative posts. Smoothing slithery subjects :cool:

I find that being able to share ideas and thoughts with other inquisitive beings to be far more valuable than an abundance of material wealth. It is a beautiful thing that we can experience. — Universal Student

:up: :sparkle:

Take care and thank you, again :clap:

1. The content of awareness is experience.
2. Experience is everything one can be aware of -self, sensation, ideas, memories the taste of mango, the fear of flying, the sound of mother's voice. Present feeling, past memories, future imagining. — unenlightened

1. OK, so I've got me a bucket of awareness. Hmm. No, awareness is not a container, material or otherwise. What is it? A type of consciousness, perception or knowledge of something happening or existing.
2. This is a subjective experience of our external and internal world or life. However, not all that happens or existed in the past, present or future can be totally known to us. Past and future imaginings can be problematic if we are not aware of their partial and illusionary qualities.

We have limited and different types of awareness. Some parts we pay more attention to, they are personally more meaningful and so, there is a sensitivity or 'heightened' awareness.
Examples: emotional, political, environmental.
Most of the time, we can choose to engage or disengage with thoughts, communication, and action.
However, we are not always aware we hold on to certain habits of thought or ways of thinking/feeling when it might be an idea to reflect and review our individual patterns.

We can be living with a religious belief bestowed upon us by our parents; we might hold them dear or fear estrangement if we doubt, challenge or change. This can be an emotional experience heightened by increased awareness.
So, I don't see 1. experience as the content of awareness, rather they are intertwined. Awareness has an effect on experience and v.v.

3. Awareness is an idea one has to have in order to understand the world, of something that is outside experience. — unenlightened

So, now 'awareness' has changed from subjective perception to an abstract concept. Who keeps that general idea or mental image in mind when different aspects of the world are explored? Scientists?
To understand anything beyond our experience, we need to travel - externally or internally - but we need to consider where we want to go. Which paths to take.

In a cage of negativity, the positives can't be seen or are out of reach.
Sometimes we are not even aware that we have been depressed until the shadows lift.
I suggest that we hardly ever have true emotional awareness.
To develop, we need to have or be shown skills; to identify moods, their causes, the tools to manage any problems. Understanding ourselves and others, to relate better is vital for holistic wellbeingness.

Thus one has the idea, but can give it no content, because if it had content it would be an experience that one was aware of not the awareness itself. — unenlightened

This doesn't make any sense to me.

So in order not to recreate awareness as an experience one has, that would necessitate another 'one' to be aware of it, I say that we have the idea of awareness, but it has to be empty, silent. Unlike the self, which is this complex of memories ideas and sensations that one is aware of and identifies with. — unenlightened

Again, no sense. How can an idea be 'empty'?
OK, I think I'm in danger of repeating myself so I'll stop here.

Thanks for engaging and provoking thought. :sparkle: