An Affirmation of the Common Poet*

An Affirmation of the Common Poet

 

-The Man Who Met Reasonable Expectations-

 

An artist cannot know the value of his work because only the unimpeachable judgment of an omniscient God can provide a reliable measure. So far, the Lord has been reticent on this issue �" at least to me. Also, works of the heart are fleeting; they have little hope of enduring very long and no hope of enduring forever. They perish because they are inventions of the physical world, and as such, rely on available technology for their expression: The caveman could not be Chopin because he did not have a piano. Unlike God, we create things within the boundaries of time and place.

 

-P-

 

But there may be something about art that does endure:

Love, that eternal thing that Camille Du Monde said

Can only be caused by itself

 

And connects the eternity of God-before-us

To the eternity of God-after-us.

I trust that this is so.

 

When an individual’s efforts are motivated by love,

A link to the eternal may be established,

Extending a heavenly chain.

 

Paris published fewer than a dozen copies of his completed work. He never sought commercial publication because he believed that serious literature, particularly poetry, written by common poets, has little if any future in what he considered to be a profoundly nihilistic and philistine age. Pilgrim Heart is such a work, and the poet believed he was too old for ambitions that were likely to invite the attention of malicious people or the shame of transparent vanity. Indeed, he scarcely cared what others thought about his work. He knew its value to himself, and to the God who inspired him. In the end, he remained true to that conviction.

Originally, the poet envisioned a single kindred spirit stumbling upon his book in a happier age, one who might be inspired by it to create something even better. And although the internet would provide a much larger audience for Paris than that, the poet knew from the beginning that he had all the admirers he would ever need within his family and a small circle of friends. None of that matters anyway, because Paris was certain that he had created something of significance. He had made a case for hope, despite his shortcomings, sins, existential fears, and intellectual limitations. He was satisfied that the creation of his book had made him a better reflection of his Creator, and he believed he had fulfilled a decades-old obligation to his mother. That may represent the full value of his labor. If so, Paris Eugene Hlad, a dreamer and common poet, seems to have met reasonable expectations.[1]

 

Still, like all poets before him, Paris hoped that his work would not “willingly be let go." He considered his poetry to be important literature in the truest sense of the word because it is an honest and heartfelt statement about the nature of being, and that may be the only significant statement a poet can make. Indeed, if his work in some way inspires another to contemplate the meaning of life more earnestly, then his labors will have been justified; for a whole universe will have been made larger and more dignified.

 

The poet let go of my hand on December 26, 2022. He gazed quizzically at my sorrow and breathed his last in the warm glow of an unusually scarlet sunset without saying goodbye. He seems to have endured no physical pain or sense of sadness any greater than anyone else who has ever lived and died; and from what I could tell, he withdrew from our world without significant regret. He had simply come to the end of his book, and he was at peace with the turning of its last page: His mother was calling him home, and he left straight away, as if he had something important to show her.