ACTING ON IMPULSE: Whitman, Poetry and New Year's Resolutions

'The Art of Seeing' by Michael Milton

My modest return to writing poetry (see November 15, 2015 'Bloggers' section of The Brooklyn Reader), was prompted, in part, after discovering  Bed-Stuy poet Walt Whitman's evocative opus, CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY.  My excitement for the form was quickly re-kindled.  Whitman's long lined stanzas spin out, fugue-like;  future and past, spiritual and earthly play simultaneously, his words brimming with new and unexpected possibilities.

So, this last 'Art of Seeing' of 2015 and the first which will appear in January of 2016 are both, in part, a response to this personal, poetical renaissance.

Poetry has always felt to me to be an 'impulsive' art form; there is a kind of urgency, a fleeting moment which, if captured on the page, might encapsulate some truth about the human experience.

With year-end reflections, I see my own life as a series of moments which fit onto either one side or the other of a ledger with headings reading 'satisfaction' or 'regret.'  I admire people who respond to life 'with their gut,' impulsively.  I don't often trust my gut—a regret.

Still, some of my greatest satisfactions this year have been derived from moments when I HAVE manned up and wandered down some unexplored path guided by wordless instinct.

For example, early in my days singing with New Amsterdam Singers, I met one of the fellows in the chorus and developed a gut feeling about him; a 'bro-crush,' if you wish, though we hardly knew one another; we sang in different sections and I don't recall us even speaking often in those first months.

My response to him was multi-layered:  first, I remember hearing him sing; a lovely, clear, emotionally anchored tenor.   Simultaneously, there was something about his face and expression; he reminded me of the Byzantine  mosaics of Christian saints which covered the walls and ceilings of houses of worship from Rome to Constantinople around 1000 AD; broad, open, expressive faces, short clipped hair,  light beards, round eyes filled with wonder, pain and revelation.

For whatever reason, he inspired my curiosity.  I was patient.  I observed him often writing notes off on his own during breaks or before performances.  After a year and a half, my mental dossier on Professor Nate Mickelson included the following facts:  He had lived in Brooklyn; his former relationship had flourished and ended there; and he was about to receive his doctorate in poetry.

Ah, back to poetry!  Timing, I suppose, is everything.  I know I'm stretching it here, but there is a sort of 'art' in learning to trust that impulsive voice within ourselves; and maybe another kind of art in actually acting upon it.  I did act and I'm thankful for that, inspired not only by Professor Mickelson's own poetry, but by his observations on Brooklyn's literary son Walt Whitman.

SPECULATION by Nate Mickelson