Here's Natalie Belz, a young American lass from North Carolina, remembering the late Russell Edson, master of the prose poem -
Yesterday
I recited Russell Edson’s “Mr. Brain” as part of my English class’s
poetry unit. Whereas most students had picked a more recognizable name
such as Robert Frost or Emily Dickinson, my first thought was the late
Russell Edson. Though I’m not a great memorizer and had a hard time
reciting it, as I learned it, the simple, exquisite weirdness and beauty
of it made it feel like my own.
Edson’s appeal is not of
existential nature, nor deep perception of reality, life, love, humanity
or other such poetic ideals. What makes the poetry of Russell Edson
beautiful is the impersonal and powerfully absurd nature of his writing.
Growing
up I was heavily influenced by the creative process and poetry of my
father, Aaron Belz, who I think is unlike most others in his field. Much
of his poetry is written like the stream of consciousness of an
educated child. I’ve been attending readings of his poetry for as long
as I can remember; a little kid going on road trip after road trip to
similar bars, coffee shops and bookstores across the country. I’ve heard
every poem many, many times, and each time they’re read I witness the
same fresh wave of laughter from a new crowd of the artsy hipster types.
All these years I’ve been subconsciously absorbing, analyzing and
digesting his way of thinking through his words, having a vital impact
on my own understanding of creativity and art.
In my childhood,
my family and I were also quite fond of the Japanese director and
animator Hayao Miyazaki. We especially adored Spirited Away, Castle in
the Sky and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Although designed for children,
these films are extremely artful and deep, and equally entertaining to
adults. It’s incredible to me that the work of an elderly Japanese
artist connects just as easily to a child’s mind as to the more mature,
adult way of thinking. We still watch all of his movies. Some we’ve seen
like 30 or 40 times.
The philosophy of artists like Miyazaki,
Pendleton Ward (creator of Adventure Time), and my father, relies on
youthful apprehension, and so, I’m realizing, does Russell Edson’s. I
first found his poetry by picking up The Tunnel: Selected Poems from my
dad’s coffee table several years ago. The gateway to my appreciation for
the book was “Counting Sheep,” which begins:
A scientist has a test tube full of sheep. He wonders if he should try to shrink a pasture for them.
They are like grains of rice.
He wonders if it is possible to shrink something out of existence.
I
had flipped to it by chance. The stream of consciousness writing and
the lighthearted absurdity were both warmly familiar, and I quickly fell
in love with every word my eyes discovered in the book. Perhaps I
needed an escape from my dad’s worn-out narratives, and my comprehension
was still too immature for poems about the adult-world, and so I
devoured what I had in front of me.
Russell Edson’s surrealism
comes from reverting to complete childishness. In this way he is able to
reflect purely subconscious thought. Through contrasting any ugly or
changing environment with internal “made-up” conflict/understanding, his
speaker is comparable to the oblivious characters of a (much loved)
David Lynch film, Eraserhead. He ties Salvador Dali-esque imagery with a
spec of self-psychology in “The Kingdom” in which the speaker
confesses, “I have been living in my mind. Pain rides in. I no longer
care; the king is sick with doubt” as his watch melts on his wrist. His
childish thoughts, written out on paper, are reversions to a reality
that feels like home.
What I got from encountering Russell Edson
as a younger person has carried into my a-little-bit-older-person life.
It has been contributed to my collection of formative artists, shaping
my mind and creative thinking, and colored my glasses. If time allows, I
can carry this into my own morphing and changing future. I will take
these beautiful little details to something new, something wonderful and
spontaneous, my own reflection of the glorious and undeniable
subconscious that quietly informs our existence. Russell Edson gave me a
window through which I can watch apes, angels, sheep, old men, dogs,
grass and children interacting on the same weird level.
— Natalie Belz
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Bless you, Natalie.
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