Y NON-BAHA'i FRIENDS who are poets frequently complain that among friends and members of their fa milies to whom they show their work they encounter in- difference, contempt, embarassment, or sometimes hostility, which heightens their sense of alienation and uselessness. They are made to feel frivolous and somewhat less than respectable. They have no experience of audience and feel that they are writing in a void , speaking to themselves in a vacuum , presenting their private view of the world with no confidence that anyone else might see the world as they do . Poetry is no longer very accessible to the average reader; it is rare to find families and groups of friends gathering together to read poetry; it is increasingly seen as a special- ized and elitist interest divorced from real life, and few con- sider it a source of pleasure and insight. Poetry is still written and read, of course, but it has taken refuge in universities, creative writing workshops, and obscure coffeehouses. Sel- dom is it recogoized as a vital means of communicating in- formation of a kind that is found only in poems-bulletins

2 Roger While

from the unconscious, " those sly reports on private ex- perience, voices of the inner self . . . .. as Louise Bernikow has remarked .' Poets are in part to blame for the diminished regard in which poetry is held that results in society's impoverishment and deprives the poet of an audience. Without a common world perspective, poets are forced to delve in to their own psyches with the result that much modern poetry is des- pairing or seemingly deliberately difficult-one might say II written in a private code. Many modern poets who write con- fessional verse invite us channlessly to follow them not only into the bedroom but also the bathroom, and might dismiss our reluctance to do so as squeamishness, not noticing our yawns. Poetry that celebrates natural speech and activity can make unnatural demands on our sympathy and psychic fastid iousness. In an age of instant gratification a consumer society seeks consumer-oriented entertainments; we have perhaps deserved the disposable poems and novels we are given in such abundance, thirst as we might for literature that affirms life and identity, and reinforces our human ity in its struggle to resist the assault of all that is mechanistic and ro- botic. It remains the task of poetry to translate into words, with intensity and economy, the inexpressible with an im- mediacy that is not achieved in other art fo rms. T he poet must not just describe the loaf but provide readers with the experience of eating it; the poet places the bread on the tongue. When the poet fails in this duty, readers will turn to films and novels for the kind of information about life that it is the poet's responsibility and privilege to provide. Poets learn to live with the disquieting knowledge that more people aspire to write poetry than read it, and that more read it than buy it. This situation, it might be supposed , will gradually change in a Baha'i society whose members are trained not to confuse who they are with what they do; who accept the necessity of inhabiting a social persona without Poetry and Self- Trans/ormation 3 having it overshadow the soul within that stands naked be- fore its Creator; and whose interior lives are privately called into account each day, not morbidly, but in a spirit of crea- tive self-interest that fosters growth towards fuller human de- velopment _If the best poets are indeed, as has been said of them, the antennae of civilization, we might do well to con- sult them_ Their wisdom, Inder Nath Kher insists, "cannot be translated into discursive prose_ "2 One of the highest services they perform is to reacquaint us with our true feel- ings which we put away in our need to manipulate our work- aday world_ But if we are correct in respecting poets as servants, we err in demanding that they be slaves to or propagandists of our view of reality_ Very fine poetry has been created by poets writing both within and without a re- ligious framework_ It is chastening for the Baha'i poet rising rapturously from devotions, and bent on "committing liter- ature" (I accept blame for the phrase) by enshrining pious thoughts in poems, to recall T.S. Eliot's admonition that peo- ple who write devotional verse are usually writing as they want to feel, rather than as they do feel. Many serious poets and other artists fee l that they are at war ,vith the age_ Through this estrangement, both the poet and potential readers are the losers. Most of us have forgot- ten our discovery of poetry as children through nursery rhymes when we were fascinated to learn that words dance and resonate and have the capacity to provide the epiphanic moment, to transport, to express something we didn't know how to say, to reveal something we didn't know we knew. If the writer has done a valid job, the act of writing a poem has changed the writer, and we in reading it are put in touch with a power that transforms us- if only by reminding us that transfor mation is possible. T his is what we look for in art. Cyril Connolly would have it that, "The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece ... no other task is of any consequence . . . writers engaged in any literary task which 4 Roger While

is not an assault on perfection . . . might as well be peeling potatoes. "3 Carol Stemhell, writing in the New York Times, relates how her fri end , Michael, aged two, tried to climb inside a book. "Unwilling to believe that so wonderful a world [as described in the story he had heard read to him) was unreachable, he simply opened the tale to his favorite page, carefully ar ranged his choice on the floor and stepped in . He tried again and again, certain he would soon get it right , and each time he was left standing out in the cold he cried in bewilderment ." Few of us are as innocent as Michael: we take revenge on the authors by refusing to read them , stud y them with calcula· tion in order to expose their tricks, or withdraw from mag ic trnasport to take refuge in reading what we fondly believe are facts, revered because so manipulable. Most newspapers, how-to manuals, and interoffice memos have the virtue of be· ing written in mind-numbing, heavisome pro e . They have designs on our opinions and attitudes, and sometimes on our purses and our votes, but they are not usually concerned with our interior selves on any profound level. ewspa pers and pe riodicals are adored by politicians. Emily Dickinson's father, who was a politician, displayed a misplaced kindness in indulgently allowing her to read the local newspaper, while urging her not to read books-especially the poetry she loved-lest they "jostle" her mind. Dickinson herself wa ,of course, a great poet although her father appears to have suc· cessfull y avoided recognizing this . " Everybody must have wished at some time that poetry were written by nice ordi· nary people instead of poets-and, in a better world, it may be," as Randall Jarrell ruefully observes. But the cockroaches of poetry lurk beneath the floorboard of even the loftiest mansions of the rational mind. It fell to my lot, as Associate Editor of Hansard, the record of the de· bates of the Canadian Parliament, to ed it the following sen- tences, given here in the pristine form in which they fell from the honora ble orators' lips: Poetry and Self- Transfonnation 5

Hon. Member for Grey North: Yes, Mr. Speaker, pessi- mism is the scarecrow that fear erects in the watermelon patch of the future to frighten away the timid souls so the feast may be richer for the few who are not afraid. Hon. Member for Niagara Falls: I have thrown the Min- ister an orchid, and if you think I am throwing him a bean- ball at any time, merely point it out to me, and J will try to get the engine back on the track. HOll. Member for Halifax: [In Divorce Bill Committee] It is extremely difficult to track down adultery and you seize upon it if you are lucky enough to find it. Hon. Member for Timiskaming: Gossip sometimes cre- ates a condition, a condition that would mean a man's rein- carnation [sic] in prison. Parolees are not supposed to drink, go into public houses or associate with women of easy virtues-there are a number of conditions they are asked to observe that are not necessarily conducive to rehabili- tation. HOll. Member for Cartier: It is possible by law to say that only those who are born are qualified to serve in Her Majesty's Forces. An Hon. Member for a Maritime Constituency: It is my privilege to represent fi shermen, those brave men who go down to the sea in ships and do their business in great waters.

If a capacity to jostle the mind were a characteristic exclu- sive to poetry, these utterances might be considered poetry of the highest order. Baha'IS who write poetry- indeed any Baha'I artists-are able to look forward to a different reception from that which my friends describe , and this will be increasingly true as the Baha'I community expands and matures . Not only do Baha', 6 Roger While

poets have a common world view shared with a community towards whose members they have a family feeling, but they are also aware of the high regard in which their craft has been held since the beginning of the Revelation . Without in any way confusing the Creative Word with poetry-one does not pun in say ing they are a "kingdom" apart- Baha'i poets might rejoice to remember that Nabil records the Bab as say- ing that exalted or inspired poetry is the result of "the im- mediate influence of the Holy Spirit," and the Bab was heard to quote the tradition " Treasures lie hidden beneath the throne of God; the key to those treasures is the tongue of poets ... • Writers of verse also know that many of the early Babis were poets, including Jahirih -at least a stanza from one of whose odes we have in the Guardian's own transla- tionS They also know that Baha'u'thih Himself wrote poetry; that, indeed, ten years before revealing his station to his fol- lowers, He alluded to it in Odes· 'Abdu'l-Baha, too, wrote poetry of a most exalted and devo- tional nature which, admire it though we may, we should resist imitating, just as we should resist writing poems in the style of the Revealed Word, which does not need our at- tempted compliment. I am convinced there exists in the Sacred Writings and in the recorded talks of 'Abdu 'l-Baha a fou ndation upon which will be built a greater system of aesthetics for all the arts than the world has yet known, and that time and the patient researches of scholars and the creative efforts of artists will bring it to light. At this early stage in the development of the Baha'i world community, one can only speculate that before Baha'i artists can contribute significant advances they must dedicate themselves to the restoration and preservation of the ideals of beauty and perfection and order . In describing the high calling of the artist, David Bosworth hin ts at the inten- sity of the creative engagement: " T o bear witness, to be an author, to make art, is a profound act; there is no work more serious or demanding or fina lly audacious. " 7 Baha'is who Poetry and Self- Trans/ormation 7

write should not be surprised to discover that in addition to audacity the task confronting them may require heroism- Baha'is in almost everything they do are pioneering in one form or another. Kathleen Raine, the British poet and critic, laments:

I have found myself wondering why the present age seems positively to shrink from beauty, to prefer the ugly, to feel safer, more at home with it; and I have come to real- ize that there is a reproach in the beautiful and the perfect; it passes its continual silent judgement and it requires perhaps a kind of courage to love what is perfect, since to do so is an implicit confession of our own imperfection. Can it be that the prevalence of the low and the sordid in con- temporary writing is a kind of easy way, a form of sloth , an avoidance of that reproach which would call us, silently, to [aspire to] a self-perfection it would cost us too much to undertake? And yet it is in order to work upon us that transformation ... that works which embody the beauti- ful alone exist. That is their function . .. 8

The situation obtaining in t he arts is too well known to re- quire comm ent. The Universal House of Justice on 10 Febru- ary 1980, in a general letter to Iranian Baha'is "resident in other countries throughout the world," did not labor the point. After drawing attention to 'Abdu'I-Baha's reference to deepening chaos and confusion, the House of Justice stated: "Even music, art and literature, which are to represent and inspire the noblest sentiments and highest aspirations and should be a source of comfort and tranquillity for troubled souls . . . are now the mirrors of the soiled hearts of this con- fused, unprincipled, and disordered age." Unquestionably, Baha'i writers have their work cut out for them. Alex Aronson, a respected Shakespearian scholar, ob- serving from outside the Baha'i community, has been quick to discern that Baha'i authors may playa role in addressing 8 Roger While

themselves to "dimensions of living reality . . . long ago con- signed to oblivion" under the weight of "the triviality of our everyday experience" and in restoring the "grammar of belief. ". Language is the meduim of the poet. One has only to turn to the words of 'Abdu'I-Baha to discover its purpose: " ... the function of language is to portray the mysteries and secrets of human hearts. The heart is like a box, and lan- guage is the key.'" And since, in The Hiddell Words, Ba- ha'u'llah tells us, "Thy heart is My home" (No. 59, Arabic), and that "A ll that is in heaven and earth I have ordained for thee, except the human heart, which I have made the iUlbitation of My beauly and glory . . . " (No. 27, Persian), Baha 'i poets will not lack for subject matter and will be challenged to ex- cellence of diction. or are they restricted to the solemn and devotational, for the heart is the seat also of joy and laugh- ter and passion. Baha'i poets might well write of "the inti- mate presence of the divine in the lives of men"l. but will not confine their appreciation to poetry of that stamp, for they will probably recognize with Louis Mac eice, who felt " the drunkenness of things being various," that the world is "in- corrigibly plural" and "suddener than we fancy it."" Humil- ity will inform Baha'f artists that they do not possess truth, though they may feel they have glimpsed its wellspring and will remain receptive to the poetry of quest. An emergent Baha'i community, grown secure, will not, dare I guess, con- tent itseU with didactic and exhortative verse but will espouse poetry that celebrates an improved quality of life and will explore its ceremonial and recreational uses, its capacity to delight, inform, and inspire. Yeats pleaded for "the old pas- sion felt as new" and declared heroic and religious themes, passed down from age to age, modified by individual talent, to be the unchanging substance of sublime poetry. Louise Bogan noted sadly that the generation of rising young poets in America whose work she reviewed wrote unambitious poems and were " positively terrified" of the sublime. Poetry and Self- Transformation 9

"It is certain that with the spread of the spirit of Baha'u'llah a new era will dawn in art and literature," Shoghi Effendi's secretary wrote on his behalf to a Baha'i who had sent him a poem. "Whereas before the foml was perfect but the spirit was lacking, now there will be a glorious spirit embodied in a form immeasurably improved by the quickened genius of the world . "12 It remains for the poets and other artists of today and tomorrow to give expression to that spirit. The distinguished black poet, Robert Hayden, who was a Baha'i, writing in World Order a publication he served as poetry editor, said of this process: " The making of a poem, like all other creative endeavors, is in the Baha'i view a spiritual act, a form of wor- ship," and reminded us of 'Abdu'l-Bah<i's words that, "If a man engages with all his power in the acquisition of a science or in the perfection of an art, it is as if he has been worship- ping God .... What bounty greater than this that science should be considered as an act of worship and art as service to the Kingdom of God?" 13 Would that not be, human society so ordered as to reflect divine ideals and virtues? Hayden continued:

It seems especially significant that 'Abdu'l-Baha makes no distinction between "secular" and "religious" art. And we may infer from this that poetry, for example, need not be limited to religious themes (in the usual sense of the term) in order to serve "the Kingdom of God." 'Abdu'l-Baha sees the creative act as essentially a religious act. The serious artist is involved in a spiritual enterprise. The poet's efforts to master form and technique are in themselves a kind of prayer.... If there exists a "poetry of despair" and rejec- tion, there is also a poetry that affirms the humane and spiritual. 14

It could also be pointed out that ' Abdu'l-Baha makes no dis- tinction between women and men writers and artists, nor ROBERT HAYDEN (1913-1980) a distinguished Baha'i poet. Poetry alld &1/- Trans/onltation 11

does he make any other invidious distinctions. Baha'f writers should have no need to write out of anger and frustration oc- casioned by discrimination against them on the grounds of race or sex; they should have no need to engage in special pleading. The Baha'f woman poet will not find it necessary to adopt the humiliating and dissembling device of append- ing to her work a self-deprecating note like that which ap- peared in the first volume of poetry published by an Englishwoman, Katherine Philips (1631-1664), a tactic em- ployed in various guises by women writers well into the nineteenth century because of their vulnerability in a literary world dominated by men:

I am so far from expecting applause for any thi ng I scrib- ble that I can hardly expect pardon; and sometimes I think that employment so far above my reach and unfit for my sex that I am going to resolve against itfor ever. .. . The truth is I have an incorrigible inclination to that folly of rhyming and intending the effects of that humour only for my own amusement in a retired life, I did not so much resist it as a wiser woman would have done. IS

The male writer will not be disconcerted or threatened by the news that the earliest poet whose work survives is the Sumerian moon priestess, Enheduanna, born circa 2300 BC, of whom a detailed likeness has come down to us on a stone disc. T o mention that she was the daughter of a king would merely serve to underline the pernicious tradition of defin- ing women and their achievements as minor subordinate stars in relation to the galaxy of great male planets. And the male writer might respectfully regard, as an early ancestor-in-craft, Anne Brad treet (1612?-1672), the first published poet of the New World. We should not doubt that the world needs and will accept what we fashion with our best effort. Kathleen Raine states it well: 12 Roger White

... people CI ave for the heroic and the beautiful; and when they cease to do so ... can our civilization long survive? The ugly and the vulgar enable us not to feel, not to think, not to live; they save us from the anguish of living. Let us admit that our society as a whole has chosen death- death in small, painless doses. Fortunes are made by selling it. 16

She points to the almost universally forgotten use of poetry and the other arts to hold up to us a mirror of our own spiri- tual and human potential , to strengthen our will to aspire and to transform our vision of ourselves. The true work of art, Rilke said, addresses humanity saying: You must change your life. But note that he says you must change it. That is a great truth which many of us spend our lives evading. Transfonna- tion, we vainly hope, will come from an outside agent- the princess will kiss the frog- and it will be painless. But Rilke has the support of Baha'u'llah in saying that we must trans- form ourselves. He makes it clear that growth and change, res~ ue from stasis, are achieved at a cost. In one of his odes written in Sulaym<iniyyih, Baha'u'll<ih declares:

If thine aim be to cherish thy life, approach not our court; but if sacrifice be thy hearl's desire, come and let others come with thee. For such is the way of Faith, if in thy hearl thou seekest reunion with BaM; shouldst tlwu refuse to tread this path, why trouble us? Begone!17

And again, in the afterword to the Hidden Words:

I bear witness, 0 friends! that the favor is complete. the argument fulfilled. the proof manifest and the evidence estab· Poetry and Self-Trans/omzation 13

Ii Iwd_1.21 il now b~ s~n what your endeavors ill the path oj detachment will reveal.

Because I believe in the truth of the statement that change must be self-initiated, I have made it the theme of a poem in which I hope I have made a legitimate use of irony in depict- ing rescue as I think many of us would have it be: effortless, dramatic, and imposed by a congenially romantic agent who yet tells us, had we ears to hear, that transfOl mation and tran- scendence must passionately engage our volition:

RESCUE It cannot continue like this. Surely the stranger will come at midnight burst into the room on quick light feet shake spring rain spangles from his ripe-wheat hair the eyes blue opals iridescent with decision to draw you from your reading chair to say-the words hard-edged, distinct as gems on velvet, his voice ascending in excitement- You musl change all 0/ this! Or next Thursday come pensively at twilight to sit coiled in silence on the low divan then rise with lithe grace dark locks luxuriant above the flawless brow grave eyes mushy with thought to say in slurred excruciating tenderness- the tone a dreamer 's- Come away, this will not do! Or come the Morn of Popinjay stride through the sunlit garden •

14 Roger White

appear suddenly, filling the doorway, a lean column , urgent and ebony- his strong white teeth a keyboard of annunciation- to clasp your wrist, to say-the voice a snapping twig-Look, Y0lt must escape! his grasp resolute, compelling, the bronzy knuckles deceptively shell-delicate come to say-the voice precise, huskily constricted- This is the time for risks! to say, Listen, there is 110 jonlluia! to say, There is a belter way! to say, It cannot continue like this! ~ ~ ~ '- l! ,ll

ROGER WHITE (center) Canadian-born author and poet, with Anne Gordon Atkinson (left) and Deborah Chicurel Conow (right) who frequently give dramatic readings of his poetry,