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I think poetry has this remarkable
capacity to sit with difficult

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emotions, to sit with tragedy, to
tar with them in this mindful way,

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whereas our, I think, common attitude.

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To death and grief in our daily lives,
and this is also to do with our wider

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culture, is we wanna flee from them,
pret ... Read More

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I think poetry has this remarkable
capacity to sit with difficult

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00:00:07,500 --> 00:00:14,430
emotions, to sit with tragedy, to
tar with them in this mindful way,

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whereas our, I think, common attitude.

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To death and grief in our daily lives,
and this is also to do with our wider

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culture, is we wanna flee from them,
pretend that if we're healthy, pretend

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that death is somewhere over in the
distance and I can just worry about

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it when death knocks on the door.

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Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead, a
podcast encouraging open conversations

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about dying and the death of a loved one.

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I'm your host Catherine Ashton, founder
of Critical Info, and I'm helping to

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bring your stories of death back to life.

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Because while you may not be ready
to die, at least you can be prepared.

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Don't Be Caught Dead acknowledges
the lands of the Kulin Nations

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and recognises their connection
to land, sea and community.

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We pay our respects to their Elders,
past, present and emerging and extend

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that respect to all Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander and First

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Nation peoples around the globe.

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Today I'm speaking with Luke Fischer.

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Luke is a poet, philosopher
and scholar of poetry.

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He is the author of A
Gamble for My Daughter.

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And a series of poetry collections, a
personal history of vision and paths of

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flight, the monograph of the poet as a
phenomenologist, Rilke and the New Poems,

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and the children's book, The Blue Forest.

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His editorial work includes the co
edited volume of essays, Rilke's

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Sonnets to Orpheus, Philosophical
and Critical Perspectives, and a co

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edited special section of the Goethe
Yearbook on Goethe and Environmentalism.

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He frequently collaborates in events with
other writers, musicians, and artists, and

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is an Honorary Associate of the Philosophy
Department at the University of Sydney.

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Welcome to the show, Luke.

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Thank you very much, Catherine.

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It's a pleasure to be here.

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discuss these topics.

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Now, Luke, I know that you collaborate
and appear at various festivals because

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that's how we met was at the Sydney
Festival of Death and Dying last

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year in November, I believe it was.

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Tell me, how did you get
started in this work?

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That is, uh, giving readings and
doing things at festivals and

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that kind of thing, that's it.

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I mean, the Death and Dying Festival
is really through a personal

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connection, as things often are.

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That's Peter Banke, the director of the
festival, is a friend of mine, and we

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share a lot of overlapping interests
in poetry, more specifically, yeah, the

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German language, poetry tradition, and
philosophy too, continental or European

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philosophy of the last few hundred years.

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And so Peter invited me first
to that festival several years

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ago, and then invited me back
again at this last festival.

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And so I ran this workshop on the
consolation of poetry, I called it, and

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how poetry can in a way bring us into
a more mindful relationship to death

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and grief and such difficult matters.

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But I generally like to collaborate
with musicians in particular.

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And for many years, or quite
a number of years, ran what I

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called a poetry and music salon.

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And I keep doing that where I invite poets
to give readings and musicians to perform.

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And that happened a lot in places
where I lived, mostly in Bondi

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when I lived in an apartment in
Bondi with my wife, Darlene Assar.

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But I've done public events like that
too, collaborated with the wonderful

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environmental artist Janet Lawrence.

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We did a session, for example, on poetry
and trees at the Museum of Contemporary

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Art when she had a retrospective.

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But I like bringing different art
forms together and particularly poetry

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and music enrich one another, I find.

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I mean, obviously they both have to
do with listening and sound, but you

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kind of listen to them in a different
way, which I find, yeah, I find that

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they complement one another well.

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And how did you, I suppose, before
you started collaborating with

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other artists and how did you start?

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What did you, have you always
been interested in poetry

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since you were a child or?

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Yeah, my interest in
poetry started quite early.

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So I'd just say exactly when it began
is it, you know, a poem I wrote in.

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Primary school, my mother probably has
somewhere in a box or did it start much

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later, but definitely as a teenager
studying the British romantic poets

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and other poets, I remember, yeah,
a couple of other friends being into

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poetry too, and reciting poems out loud.

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And yeah, in my mid teens, I would say.

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I started writing poetry and
at least in a more serious way.

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And yeah, by my late teens, I was
quite serious about writing poetry.

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And tell me, how do you, when you realise
that you, this is something that you want

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to pursue, and this is something that
you're obviously quite passionate about.

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How was that journey for you?

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How did that then transition
into being a full time?

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Poet and philosopher.

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Like that is not a career path that they
normally sit down and tell you about.

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Yeah, definitely not a career path to
choose if you want to make money either,

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just in case anyone, you know, wants to
get into poetry as a lucrative endeavor.

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So I got into philosophy, or the kind of
big philosophical questions and thinking

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about them as a teenager too, and the
time came for me to go to university.

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Well, I studied various things.

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I did a Bachelor of Arts degree in the.

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first year, like many students,
I was exploring different things.

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But yeah, I studied, I majored in
English and, and philosophy and I did

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more philosophy than anything else.

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And then I ended up doing
a PhD in philosophy.

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But through that time, I always had
a sense that literature, but poetry

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more specifically, because that's
been my passion, is inherently

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philosophical, and that philosophy can
benefit from poetry or an attention,

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giving more attention to poetry.

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So that ran through my studies, and
I read a very unconventional doctoral

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thesis that was focused on the poet.

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It wasn't my first choice of subject,
but that's what I ended up writing

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on, this German language poet born in
Prague, modernist poet Rainer Maria

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Rilke, and interpreting his work from
a philosophical point of view, from

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a phenomenological point of view, to
use that tongue twister of a word.

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So yeah, I was in a philosophy department.

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I was doing research in
Germany during my doctorate.

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And lived there for a couple of
years, improving my German well

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enough to decipher a difficult poet
in a foreign language, and so on.

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That is quite the challenge you set for

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yourself.

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Yes, at the time it was quite
ambitious, but yeah, the more you apply

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yourself to a language, of course, the
better you get at understanding and

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interpreting it, and definitely living
in the context of a novel language

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helps a lot, of course, when you're
day to day interactions in German.

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Does that make you appreciate the
words that you're actually either

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developing or also reviewing because
you are actually looking at it

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from another language perspective?

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Do you mean when I'm looking at
German poetry in particular, or

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more generally, in my way of going
about thinking about poetry, or?

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Both ways, really.

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Like, they say that when someone
learns another language, it

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really breaks it down and exposes
them to a wider array of things.

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Have you found that in
the work that you've done?

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Yeah, certainly.

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I mean, translation, I haven't
done a lot of translating, but

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I have done translations of
academic essays as well as poems.

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Sometimes my monograph on Rilke,
I translated all the poems that I

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interpret there and similarly with the
other volume on Rilke, and I've done

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work on another German poet, Herzelin.

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And in those cases, I'm not necessarily
aiming for the most poetic translation.

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Anyway, the complex issues involved
in how to go about translating a poem.

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Yeah.

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But one of the rich things about
translation, which is why I

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mentioned it, is you become aware
of the peculiarities of the two

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languages, the original language and
target language of the translation.

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And in a way you become aware of
the untranslated in the effort to

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translate, or the impossibility
of conveying everything from one

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language into another language.

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And in terms of philosophy, Germany has
a very rich philosophical tradition in

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terms of modern philosophy from, you know.

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can't all the way up to the 20th
century and perhaps today still.

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So it's a language in which it's,
yeah, philosophical concepts

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have been really worked out.

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And yeah, my wife knows German too and
sometimes, we don't do it as much now,

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but sometimes when we talk, we were
talking about philosophy and just.

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do it in German because somehow
it felt better to do philosophy

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in German, clearer in a way.

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Oh, that's amazing because it must be
difficult, as you were saying, with the

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subtleties of the translation because
even when you're, you know, writing

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poetry, you're trying to convey emotion
and a point in time or a particular

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view or perspective on something.

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So to then Take that subtlety and then
translate it from a language that can

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be sometimes quite harsh and direct.

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That must've had many challenges, I'd say.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's a challenge for all translators.

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I think with poetry, this is, I
mean, it's a massive field now,

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you know, studies in translation
and translation theory and so on.

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But I think, yeah, one of the
things that translators can do is

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to try and do something kind of
equivalent in the target language

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and in the language of translation.

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But obviously you can't do something
identical, you know, you're never

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going to make German sound French.

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Right.

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So, so if you're translating from French
to German, let's say like immediately,

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there's no way that it's going to
suddenly, you know, a quite sculptural

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language, like German is going to sound
fluid and light, like French, right.

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So, but anyway, you can try and, you know.

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develop similar plays on words in the
target language, or, you know, if it's

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a formal poem, this is a big question
too, the question of whether to try and

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follow a rhyme scheme or a meter in the
target language, or B, if the Poet in

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the original language is quite inventive
with neologisms, you know, inventing new

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words and things, trying to do something
equivalent in the target language.

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Wow, it sounds like quite a challenging,
you know, it's hard enough to, for

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me to think about writing poetry,
but then you've just taken it to

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a whole other level with adding
philosophy and other languages to it.

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There, Luke.

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Now, many of your works engage
with nature and metaphysics.

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How has that sort of shaped
your perspective on mortality?

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Yeah, that's a big question in
a way, has different aspects to

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it, because I guess nature and
metaphysics also touch on one another.

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Right.

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So I've written, well, both poems and
philosophical or theoretical work on

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nature and kind of philosophy of nature,
but also on environmental and ecological.

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questions and they're fed into each
other in a way to dive into the deep end.

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In my most recent book of poems, A Gamble
for My Daughter, the opening sequence

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of this long Orphic poem and Orpheus
is known, of course, for the, you know,

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this ancient demigod who's playing of the
lyre and poetry could enchant animals.

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other natural beings too.

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So there are poems related to that, but
in the final part of this poem, the fifth

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part, there's a whole development or re
envisaging of the Orpheus myth with all

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the animals that have become extinct
in recent times through our destructive

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impact as human beings on the environment.

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So there, I mean, there you're sort
of dealing you know, extinction.

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Obviously, most contexts, when we
think about death, we think of human

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death, but yeah, we're dealing with
this event of mass extinction at the

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moment, which is, you know, the death of
species and not only individual deaths.

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And of course, in nature, life and
death are always entwined, right?

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One belongs to the other.

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To be living is to die at some point, or
to carry that potential of death that What

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will realize itself at some point in time
in our lives or any living being's life.

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So, I mean, that's a little bit on maybe
nature and the environment and death.

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But the reason I connected to
metaphysics is And maybe this could

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be, in a way, related to, kind of,
broader tradition of poetry, too.

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I mentioned earlier that an early,
sort of, inspiration for me was

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British Romantic poetry, and later
I became interested in early German

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Romanticism with very, sort of,
philosophical poets or poet philosophers.

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And, yeah, there you have poetry.

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that looks to nature but also finds
a kind of divine beauty in nature or

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something we kind of can reach towards
something transcendent in certain

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experiences of the natural world.

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So I would say there is to some
extent a metaphysical dimension.

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to some of the way I write about nature in
terms of, yeah, trying to look for a kind

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of depth or deeper kinds of experiences
we can have in relation to other beings.

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Their distinctiveness, you know,
every animal and plant has its

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own kind of unique character.

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But that can also, in a way,
yeah, communicate or we can get,

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00:14:04,235 --> 00:14:08,205
you know, intuitions of kind of a
spiritual meaningfulness in nature

219
00:14:08,205 --> 00:14:10,105
too, I think in some encounters.

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00:14:10,465 --> 00:14:15,715
And just you talking about Orpheus
and the story, could you perhaps

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00:14:15,734 --> 00:14:16,975
tell us a little bit about that?

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00:14:17,024 --> 00:14:20,425
Because maybe some people aren't, aren't
familiar with the story of Orpheus.

223
00:14:20,765 --> 00:14:20,985
Yeah.

224
00:14:20,985 --> 00:14:24,065
So there were many different
ancient legends about.

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00:14:24,569 --> 00:14:29,219
Orpheus, and Orphism was
actually a religion as well.

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00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:36,010
So Orpheus is this, you could say, poet,
musician, philosopher, theologian, you

227
00:14:36,010 --> 00:14:41,129
know, spiritual teacher, and in a way
is this sort of archetype of poetry

228
00:14:41,169 --> 00:14:46,040
and music, you know, with close ties
to Dionysus, but also Apollo, the god

229
00:14:46,040 --> 00:14:48,830
of poetry and music in ancient Greece.

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00:14:49,275 --> 00:14:54,085
And yeah, some of the kind of well
known legends of Orpheus is that

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00:14:54,175 --> 00:14:58,215
the power of his music could enchant
animals and so on, as I mentioned.

232
00:14:58,654 --> 00:15:04,205
And that when his beloved Eurydice died,
and he was, you know, playing his music

233
00:15:04,245 --> 00:15:10,685
and reciting his poetry in mourning, the
beauty of his music was so enchanting

234
00:15:10,694 --> 00:15:15,375
that even Hades and the rule of the
underworld was enchanted in Orpheus.

235
00:15:16,475 --> 00:15:22,455
was committed to go into the underworld
and find his beloved Eurydice, and he

236
00:15:22,455 --> 00:15:27,345
was given the injunction that he could
take her back to the world of the living,

237
00:15:27,455 --> 00:15:29,105
but only if he didn't turn around.

238
00:15:29,945 --> 00:15:35,185
And as he is, you know, ascending
back to our world, of course he turns

239
00:15:35,185 --> 00:15:38,965
around, you know, to make sure that
she's actually following him and that

240
00:15:38,965 --> 00:15:41,025
she's taken forever to the underworld.

241
00:15:41,114 --> 00:15:46,344
And I might say a bit more about another
important legend about Orpheus and then

242
00:15:46,345 --> 00:15:48,295
get back to the way they're connected.

243
00:15:48,535 --> 00:15:52,795
Another important one is that he
insulted the Menads, this group of

244
00:15:52,815 --> 00:15:57,974
quite wild women, and legend has
it that they tore him to pieces.

245
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:00,230
and dismembered him.

246
00:16:00,330 --> 00:16:03,090
But then his head and lyre
float across the ocean.

247
00:16:03,380 --> 00:16:06,830
His head floats to a beach on
Lesbos, which I actually visited.

248
00:16:06,870 --> 00:16:08,720
That's a whole other story.

249
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,020
And his head continues to
sing while it's dismembered.

250
00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:17,345
So Orpheus is this very significant
figure in terms of negotiating the realms

251
00:16:17,345 --> 00:16:22,755
of the living and the dead and also the
place of art and poetry in relation to

252
00:16:23,005 --> 00:16:26,704
the dead because he's able to travel to
the underworld while he's still alive

253
00:16:26,705 --> 00:16:34,135
because even in death his poetry continues
to resound and there's also records, you

254
00:16:34,135 --> 00:16:36,694
know, of an Orphic oracle in, on Lesbos.

255
00:16:36,694 --> 00:16:40,825
I actually visited the cave where some
archaeologists think there was an Orphic

256
00:16:40,965 --> 00:16:45,225
oracle in antiquity, which is obviously
also, you know, connecting to the dead.

257
00:16:45,545 --> 00:16:46,834
So it's a very rich myth.

258
00:16:46,955 --> 00:16:50,964
And Rilke is one of the poets to be
most influential in his treatment of

259
00:16:50,965 --> 00:16:52,675
these themes to get back to Rilke.

260
00:16:53,185 --> 00:16:57,245
Hence my book on the sonnets to Orpheus,
here with all these themes too, yeah.

261
00:16:57,515 --> 00:16:59,704
And were you writing that
when you travelled to Lesbos?

262
00:16:59,705 --> 00:17:00,278
The Sonnets

263
00:17:00,278 --> 00:17:01,855
to Orpheus book, or

264
00:17:02,500 --> 00:17:02,979
Yeah.

265
00:17:02,979 --> 00:17:04,560
So that's a book I edited.

266
00:17:04,679 --> 00:17:08,810
I co edited with Hannah Eldridge,
who's a Germanist in the States.

267
00:17:09,110 --> 00:17:12,630
So we invited other people to
contribute essays, but I also co

268
00:17:12,630 --> 00:17:17,699
authored the introduction and my
own essay, which is quite relevant.

269
00:17:17,809 --> 00:17:21,779
So my essay is called Beyond
Existentialism, The Orphic

270
00:17:21,959 --> 00:17:23,859
Unity of Life and Death.

271
00:17:24,510 --> 00:17:28,150
And the cover has this image of
Orpheus enchanting the animals.

272
00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:31,300
Yeah, and we'll definitely put
links in the show notes as well.

273
00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:36,939
So that I did earlier, but when I actually
started, obviously Rilke's an influence,

274
00:17:36,939 --> 00:17:43,429
and there are other influences too, but I
was on holidays with my wife and daughter

275
00:17:43,430 --> 00:17:45,410
when she was one for the first time.

276
00:17:45,725 --> 00:17:49,565
On the island, we went to the
island of Lesbos, and we did these

277
00:17:49,575 --> 00:17:50,635
things we haven't done before.

278
00:17:50,635 --> 00:17:51,995
I would call them work holidays.

279
00:17:52,665 --> 00:17:58,215
So you go somewhere for an extended
period, and we had a babysitter for a

280
00:17:58,215 --> 00:18:01,864
part of the day, and would, you know,
write and, you know, do research.

281
00:18:01,905 --> 00:18:06,105
And I started writing this sequence
of my own in a gamble for my

282
00:18:06,105 --> 00:18:07,615
daughter called Orphic Elegy.

283
00:18:07,815 --> 00:18:09,725
It's a long poem and developed over it.

284
00:18:09,955 --> 00:18:13,215
I can't remember how long it took me to
write all the parts, perhaps a couple

285
00:18:13,215 --> 00:18:15,795
of years, but I've started it there.

286
00:18:15,965 --> 00:18:20,405
And tell me that process of your writing,
how do you go about it that you had

287
00:18:20,455 --> 00:18:24,387
this experience and you've written a
poem over a few years, like how does

288
00:18:24,387 --> 00:18:28,470
that happen to you, to sort of pick it
up wherever you've got an inspiration,

289
00:18:28,500 --> 00:18:30,240
like talk me through your process, Luke.

290
00:18:30,470 --> 00:18:32,030
It depends a lot on the poem.

291
00:18:32,040 --> 00:18:36,450
So that particular Orphic Elegy
poem, it's the longest sort of

292
00:18:36,450 --> 00:18:38,460
continuous poem I've written.

293
00:18:38,490 --> 00:18:42,854
So in the published book, I mean,
how many So that's five parts and it

294
00:18:42,864 --> 00:18:47,135
goes from age eight to age twenty.

295
00:18:47,135 --> 00:18:49,874
So I mean, there was something
that sparked writing this poem.

296
00:18:49,875 --> 00:18:53,014
I actually remember I read
another Contemporary Poets, a

297
00:18:53,014 --> 00:18:57,385
poem to do with Orpheus, and I was
very dissatisfied by that poem.

298
00:18:57,714 --> 00:19:02,234
And somehow I jotted down some ideas
or sort of beginning lines for a poem.

299
00:19:02,935 --> 00:19:04,345
And then quite a bit later.

300
00:19:05,025 --> 00:19:06,005
I couldn't find those notes.

301
00:19:06,325 --> 00:19:09,035
I probably did end up finding them,
you know, like seven years later,

302
00:19:09,035 --> 00:19:10,365
when they were no longer relevant.

303
00:19:10,595 --> 00:19:11,535
But I couldn't find them.

304
00:19:11,535 --> 00:19:15,574
And then anyway, when we were on
the island of Lesbos, you know, not

305
00:19:15,585 --> 00:19:18,125
surprisingly, this theme was sparked.

306
00:19:18,125 --> 00:19:20,435
And so I started on the first poem.

307
00:19:20,495 --> 00:19:22,535
And it's quite a philosophical poem too.

308
00:19:22,864 --> 00:19:25,214
And the appeal of Orpheus,
you know, lots of poets.

309
00:19:25,365 --> 00:19:29,015
have written about Orpheus and
musicians have, you know, composed

310
00:19:29,055 --> 00:19:30,635
pieces to do with Orpheus.

311
00:19:31,225 --> 00:19:34,705
And, you know, the appeal is for
me that you're dealing with this

312
00:19:34,705 --> 00:19:37,225
sort of archetype of poetry itself.

313
00:19:37,235 --> 00:19:40,665
So it's one of those themes that
you can, you know, explore really.

314
00:19:40,930 --> 00:19:44,639
sort of fundamental question, quite
sort of philosophical questions, but in

315
00:19:44,639 --> 00:19:49,250
a poetic way about, you know, what is
poetry and yeah, what is its significance?

316
00:19:49,290 --> 00:19:49,580
Yeah.

317
00:19:49,620 --> 00:19:52,110
The relation between
life and death and art.

318
00:19:52,490 --> 00:19:55,399
But with that longer sequence, I
mean, what happens at a certain

319
00:19:55,419 --> 00:20:01,389
point is, so I'd written, I think
the first poem is In a way, about

320
00:20:01,389 --> 00:20:04,790
some of the things I've mentioned,
Orpheus charming animals and so on.

321
00:20:05,269 --> 00:20:10,309
And the second part of that poem is
dealing with his dismemberment by the

322
00:20:10,309 --> 00:20:16,749
Menads and kind of going into that more
destructive, violent kind of territory.

323
00:20:16,750 --> 00:20:20,610
And then after that, so the
third poem in the sequence I

324
00:20:20,620 --> 00:20:22,320
had, I didn't write after that.

325
00:20:22,370 --> 00:20:28,590
I wrote what became the fourth part,
which is about the atrocities of

326
00:20:28,590 --> 00:20:34,700
the 20th century, particularly in
Europe, and the revival of Orphism in

327
00:20:34,700 --> 00:20:36,900
various ways, or interest in Orpheus.

328
00:20:37,310 --> 00:20:43,730
And so the, yeah, the Holocaust
and the Second World War and other

329
00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:48,319
things, not sort of directly named,
but obviously implied, become this

330
00:20:48,489 --> 00:20:50,530
sort of dismemberment of Orpheus.

331
00:20:50,935 --> 00:20:56,574
Again, a kind of another dismemberment
and so I had that and then at some point

332
00:20:56,574 --> 00:21:00,764
I realized well I have to do something
with on the theme of like mass extinction

333
00:21:00,764 --> 00:21:05,195
and animals today, you know, so that
kind of emerged in a less kind of.

334
00:21:05,980 --> 00:21:08,110
obviously organic way,
but I thought I had to.

335
00:21:08,110 --> 00:21:11,530
And then another point I
realized, I can't jump just from

336
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:14,600
antiquity to the 20th century.

337
00:21:14,649 --> 00:21:18,860
And I was interested in the figure
of Orpheus in the Renaissance,

338
00:21:18,870 --> 00:21:21,550
in the Italian Renaissance,
because he, this crucial figure.

339
00:21:22,285 --> 00:21:27,145
Ficino, who was one of the main
Neoplatonist philosophers and theologians

340
00:21:27,175 --> 00:21:33,304
in Florence, apparently used to sing the
Orphic hymns, ancient texts of the Orphic

341
00:21:33,304 --> 00:21:36,534
hymns, while playing Lira de Brachio.

342
00:21:36,535 --> 00:21:40,335
And this was meant to have these
like important like astrological

343
00:21:40,344 --> 00:21:41,665
healing effects and so on.

344
00:21:41,905 --> 00:21:44,025
Anyway, he was important in that time.

345
00:21:44,045 --> 00:21:49,415
So, I decided that There should be this
section on the Renaissance and Renaissance

346
00:21:49,415 --> 00:21:53,425
philosophy and art, of course, because
this played into, you know, the art

347
00:21:53,425 --> 00:21:58,375
of Botticelli and other significant
Renaissance painters and sculptors.

348
00:21:58,575 --> 00:22:01,684
And I, yeah, we were
in Germany at the time.

349
00:22:01,684 --> 00:22:05,795
So Dalia, my wife said that I, she
was happy for me to sort of go away

350
00:22:05,795 --> 00:22:07,125
and do a little writing retreat.

351
00:22:07,135 --> 00:22:10,915
So I actually went to
Florence for about 10 days.

352
00:22:10,930 --> 00:22:11,911
That was nice.

353
00:22:11,911 --> 00:22:12,238
You

354
00:22:12,238 --> 00:22:13,875
have a very understanding wife

355
00:22:13,875 --> 00:22:14,529
there, Luke.

356
00:22:14,529 --> 00:22:19,080
Oh, but she's an academic, so what, you
know, she gets invited to conferences a

357
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:23,329
lot and goes off more than I do, so then
if she's been off for a while, like,

358
00:22:23,710 --> 00:22:27,660
we actually never spend more than about
two weeks apart from our daughter, but

359
00:22:27,690 --> 00:22:29,659
yeah, at different points would go away.

360
00:22:29,795 --> 00:22:31,695
by ourselves to do artwork.

361
00:22:31,985 --> 00:22:33,285
Anyway, so I wrote that.

362
00:22:33,365 --> 00:22:37,135
I was fortunate to write that third
part in Florence while reading up

363
00:22:37,185 --> 00:22:41,024
on, yeah, Renaissance philosophy
and looking at beautiful artworks.

364
00:22:41,025 --> 00:22:41,295
And

365
00:22:41,484 --> 00:22:46,214
having only recently returned from
Italy, I am very envious that you

366
00:22:46,215 --> 00:22:47,875
actually had that time in Florence.

367
00:22:47,885 --> 00:22:50,274
It's one place that I didn't
have an opportunity to go

368
00:22:50,274 --> 00:22:52,414
to and would love to have.

369
00:22:52,415 --> 00:22:52,435
So.

370
00:22:52,970 --> 00:22:56,140
A lot of the time we see people,
when they're dealing with

371
00:22:56,140 --> 00:22:59,380
grief, express that in poetry.

372
00:22:59,900 --> 00:23:05,640
Have you found that poetry is a good
way in which to actually express those

373
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:11,410
emotions and have you seen it used well
when it's used in a memorial kind of way?

374
00:23:11,820 --> 00:23:16,200
Yeah, I think the connection
between poetry, death, and

375
00:23:16,200 --> 00:23:18,190
grief is quite profound.

376
00:23:18,280 --> 00:23:22,579
I mean, you see this in little ways,
too, like the fact that people who

377
00:23:22,579 --> 00:23:28,020
don't usually read poems will turn to
a poem when a loved one has died, or,

378
00:23:28,269 --> 00:23:32,390
you know, either read it privately,
or in the context of a funeral, it's

379
00:23:32,390 --> 00:23:37,325
one of the public settings where, you
know, Quite frequently, a poem will be

380
00:23:37,325 --> 00:23:42,515
read and, you know, outside of those
contexts and maybe weddings, there's

381
00:23:42,635 --> 00:23:44,655
usually a humorous poem will be read.

382
00:23:45,095 --> 00:23:49,785
Outside of those contexts, poetry has
become quite a marginalized art form

383
00:23:49,785 --> 00:23:52,084
in terms of the number of readers.

384
00:23:52,390 --> 00:23:56,750
And, you know, number of copies
published of a poetry book, you know,

385
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,350
there are very few poetry bestsellers,
let's say, but in this context of

386
00:24:00,350 --> 00:24:04,730
grief and mourning and dealing with
death, poetry is quite central.

387
00:24:04,800 --> 00:24:11,120
And I think poetry has this remarkable
capacity to sit with difficult

388
00:24:11,120 --> 00:24:14,680
emotions, to sit with tragedy.

389
00:24:15,010 --> 00:24:22,800
to tarry with them in this mindful way,
whereas our, I think, common attitudes

390
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:27,610
to death and grief and sort of in our
daily lives, and this is also to do

391
00:24:27,610 --> 00:24:31,260
with our wider culture, is we want
to sort of flee from them, pretend.

392
00:24:31,999 --> 00:24:36,259
That if we're healthy, sort of pretend
that death is somewhere over in the

393
00:24:36,259 --> 00:24:40,580
distance, and I can just worry about
it when death knocks on the door.

394
00:24:40,709 --> 00:24:43,259
So, this is something that's
intrigued me a lot about poetry.

395
00:24:43,259 --> 00:24:46,179
I think it's also true of like,
you know, another thing that we

396
00:24:46,179 --> 00:24:49,409
have to deal with when it comes to
terms is this, yeah, atrocities.

397
00:24:50,595 --> 00:24:54,425
And poetry, you know, there's a lot
of, I think, powerful poetry that

398
00:24:54,425 --> 00:24:59,355
can deal with, you know, subjects
of war and genocide and so on too.

399
00:24:59,395 --> 00:25:03,585
So it's quite mysterious to me,
the way in which poetry is able

400
00:25:03,585 --> 00:25:09,004
to dwell with what we usually find
difficult to sit with emotionally.

401
00:25:09,595 --> 00:25:14,265
And there's definitely something, I
think, healing and therapeutic about.

402
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:19,429
That relationship between poetry, death
and grief, even if I don't think that

403
00:25:19,659 --> 00:25:24,600
the sort of main purpose of poetry
is to be therapeutic, I think it sort

404
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,879
of naturally has that kind of power.

405
00:25:28,239 --> 00:25:29,100
What do you think

406
00:25:29,410 --> 00:25:31,149
the purpose of poetry is then, Luke?

407
00:25:31,669 --> 00:25:34,630
That's a very easy question to answer.

408
00:25:36,220 --> 00:25:41,200
I'm not saying that the therapeutic
aspect of poetry is insignificant,

409
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,290
but it's important to consider
how poetry works as an art form.

410
00:25:46,054 --> 00:25:49,664
And, of course, poetry
is a linguistic art.

411
00:25:49,774 --> 00:25:53,274
Its medium, so to speak, is words.

412
00:25:53,815 --> 00:25:58,914
And I think part of what differentiates
poetry from philosophy, for example, is

413
00:25:58,915 --> 00:26:04,205
that philosophy is really the language of
rationality and concepts and, you know.

414
00:26:04,505 --> 00:26:07,885
I mean, only logic is really concerned
with the pure forms of thought,

415
00:26:07,935 --> 00:26:11,305
because otherwise we have subject
matters that are outside of thought,

416
00:26:11,315 --> 00:26:12,605
but we have to think about them.

417
00:26:12,904 --> 00:26:16,985
But nevertheless, philosophy takes place
in this realm of kind of pure thinking.

418
00:26:17,064 --> 00:26:23,240
And poetry, in contrast, I think, can
incorporate some of the intellectual in

419
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:28,230
a way, content of philosophy, but it does
it in a way in which it's experiences

420
00:26:28,230 --> 00:26:33,059
more immediate that also brings the
heart into play emotion and the realm

421
00:26:33,059 --> 00:26:35,260
of affect is much stronger in poetry.

422
00:26:35,939 --> 00:26:40,169
So that's still kind of saying a way in
which it's relevant to grief and death.

423
00:26:40,885 --> 00:26:47,044
But poetry is also the language that
has to always seek for fresh ways of

424
00:26:47,044 --> 00:26:53,935
speaking and talking in that, in looking
for new, striking metaphors that draw

425
00:26:53,935 --> 00:26:56,435
illuminating connections between things.

426
00:26:57,165 --> 00:27:02,555
And I think this is part of its way of
dealing with death is that, you know,

427
00:27:02,605 --> 00:27:06,765
what's, I mean, when we all experience
this, I experienced this because I

428
00:27:06,825 --> 00:27:12,215
don't feel like I'm a poet 24 seven,
you know, when someone we know has lost.

429
00:27:12,470 --> 00:27:16,440
a loved one and we feel like we should
send them a message of condolence.

430
00:27:16,890 --> 00:27:21,050
It's hard because we often use these
stock expressions and it feels like

431
00:27:21,060 --> 00:27:26,289
totally inadequate to the uniqueness of
the person who died, the significance

432
00:27:26,289 --> 00:27:31,240
of this person in our friends or
family members life and so on.

433
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,850
But poetry is this language, this
kind of renovated language or

434
00:27:34,850 --> 00:27:37,070
language that's always being revived.

435
00:27:37,085 --> 00:27:41,594
by three fresh metaphors
and turns of phrase.

436
00:27:41,645 --> 00:27:44,445
And obviously there's the
sonority of poetry, but the sort

437
00:27:44,445 --> 00:27:46,364
of musicality of the language.

438
00:27:46,914 --> 00:27:50,444
I don't know if I've answered the question
of what the purpose of poetry is, but

439
00:27:50,445 --> 00:27:55,885
there's some of the things that I think
are distinctive about poetry in contrast

440
00:27:55,885 --> 00:27:58,514
to say other disciplines and art forms.

441
00:27:58,835 --> 00:28:03,435
I find it really fascinating the way
in which you describe it as renovating

442
00:28:03,445 --> 00:28:06,345
the language, so constantly evolving.

443
00:28:06,365 --> 00:28:09,605
I'd never thought of poetry as that.

444
00:28:09,635 --> 00:28:14,444
I understand the emotion aspect
of it and I always knew that was

445
00:28:14,444 --> 00:28:18,185
connection there, but the reinvention.

446
00:28:18,615 --> 00:28:21,635
is something that's really interesting
that I hadn't thought of before.

447
00:28:21,685 --> 00:28:24,425
So I really like that aspect
that you've mentioned that.

448
00:28:24,524 --> 00:28:29,784
Yeah, I think it's very important because
it's also in a certain sense and opposite

449
00:28:29,784 --> 00:28:36,814
of poetry is the cliché or metaphors that
have become worn and basically become

450
00:28:36,874 --> 00:28:39,855
clichés themselves and truisms and so on.

451
00:28:40,485 --> 00:28:40,755
Yeah.

452
00:28:40,755 --> 00:28:45,365
And poetry and a lot of those
expressions began as sort of actually

453
00:28:45,365 --> 00:28:47,874
like engaging poetry that through.

454
00:28:48,320 --> 00:28:52,429
being used all the time and becoming
common expressions, they gradually

455
00:28:52,669 --> 00:28:55,639
lose that poetic force and vitality.

456
00:28:55,669 --> 00:29:00,940
So I think that poetry is quite
important or very important in terms

457
00:29:00,940 --> 00:29:05,859
of keeping a language alive and keeping
it evolving and in a way, yeah, the

458
00:29:05,859 --> 00:29:08,100
life of language rather than the dying.

459
00:29:08,330 --> 00:29:09,220
Of language.

460
00:29:09,570 --> 00:29:13,400
A lot of people who write about metaphor
in this subject do use those organic

461
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:17,940
metaphors of, you know, Paul Ricoeur, who
wrote a lot, French philosopher, wrote

462
00:29:17,940 --> 00:29:22,905
on living metaphor and Owen Barfield,
an English philosopher, whose work

463
00:29:22,905 --> 00:29:26,985
is very significant on this subject,
also talks in those kinds of terms

464
00:29:26,985 --> 00:29:32,414
about sort of living poetic languages,
sort of language that's alive and

465
00:29:32,615 --> 00:29:37,804
One thing I think of when you're talking
about this is how I recently interviewed

466
00:29:37,864 --> 00:29:43,024
a grief counsellor from Griefline, Brian,
and he was talking about how when we are

467
00:29:43,055 --> 00:29:47,755
trying to, um, And I'm probably going to
paraphrase him, not as eloquently as what

468
00:29:47,765 --> 00:29:53,185
he originally said it, but the concept
of when we try and comfort people and we

469
00:29:53,215 --> 00:29:58,065
offer condolences, sometimes it's very
easy for people to pull back into that

470
00:29:58,105 --> 00:30:04,755
cliche or that, you know, that sort of
very commonly used terms of, you know, I

471
00:30:04,815 --> 00:30:07,855
don't want to even think about them, to be
honest, because they're that bad to use.

472
00:30:07,885 --> 00:30:12,165
And it is a way of communicating and
offering condolences in grief that

473
00:30:12,165 --> 00:30:17,095
really is more damaging or can be
more damaging than actually showing

474
00:30:17,365 --> 00:30:22,555
just your genuine emotion and concern
to that person who is grieving.

475
00:30:22,925 --> 00:30:26,305
Would you agree with the thoughts
that you've just mentioned then?

476
00:30:26,615 --> 00:30:27,965
Yeah, I'm, you know,
not being a counsellor.

477
00:30:29,130 --> 00:30:30,170
or psychologist.

478
00:30:30,270 --> 00:30:33,050
It's hard for me to talk in terms
of, you know, how that plays

479
00:30:33,050 --> 00:30:34,810
itself out in concrete ways.

480
00:30:34,830 --> 00:30:38,620
But yes, I certainly think
we all experience that.

481
00:30:38,700 --> 00:30:44,020
And I think, yeah, there's something about
the irreplaceability of each individual.

482
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:49,195
And The way in which our connect,
how our connections to people

483
00:30:49,195 --> 00:30:53,845
we're close with really shape our
whole lives and our sense of life.

484
00:30:53,965 --> 00:30:58,645
And if you're using a phrase that's,
you know, been used thousands of

485
00:30:58,645 --> 00:31:02,235
times before, it seems like kind of,
you know, that you're just sort of

486
00:31:02,255 --> 00:31:05,285
mechanically repeating something generic.

487
00:31:05,285 --> 00:31:09,565
It doesn't capture anything of
the uniqueness of the experience

488
00:31:09,565 --> 00:31:14,695
of the death of a loved one, I
think, and how that matters to us.

489
00:31:14,965 --> 00:31:15,905
Does that make sense?

490
00:31:16,435 --> 00:31:17,404
Yeah, it does.

491
00:31:17,405 --> 00:31:21,215
And certainly from a language perspective,
the fact that you were talking about how,

492
00:31:21,605 --> 00:31:26,295
you know, poetry is always renovating
language, is that you don't want to

493
00:31:26,295 --> 00:31:30,945
just constantly be regurgitating what's
already been said previously, because

494
00:31:30,945 --> 00:31:34,165
it loses its impact as time goes on.

495
00:31:34,225 --> 00:31:36,575
And it just does become a doesn't it?

496
00:31:37,045 --> 00:31:38,035
Yeah, yeah.

497
00:31:38,245 --> 00:31:44,185
And it's something I think You see in
really accomplished poets and great poets

498
00:31:44,185 --> 00:31:49,395
that the language is being individually
shaped in, in quite a profound way.

499
00:31:49,625 --> 00:31:52,915
And I see this in, you know, all kinds
of poems I read, there might be a couple

500
00:31:52,915 --> 00:31:56,785
of lines that are striking and then
phrases where you think, oh, the person

501
00:31:56,885 --> 00:31:58,349
who's written down the first thing there.

502
00:31:58,850 --> 00:32:02,670
popped into their head because this is the
kind of expression that a lot of people

503
00:32:02,670 --> 00:32:04,540
would use in this context, you know.

504
00:32:04,670 --> 00:32:08,700
And that's not to say, I mean, cliche
can be used in poetry too, and it

505
00:32:08,700 --> 00:32:12,970
might somehow suit what you're trying
to capture about something, but yeah,

506
00:32:13,060 --> 00:32:16,980
the subject matter at that point,
or you might be using it ironically.

507
00:32:16,980 --> 00:32:21,185
And so it's not that there's no place
For stock expressions in poetry.

508
00:32:21,215 --> 00:32:24,875
I mean, we're always, we we, that
it's unavoidable as well, right?

509
00:32:24,935 --> 00:32:26,435
We're speaking a shared language.

510
00:32:26,435 --> 00:32:29,045
We can't just sort of invent
our private languages.

511
00:32:29,195 --> 00:32:34,645
But yes, I think poetry strives towards
this more distinctive way of articulating

512
00:32:34,645 --> 00:32:36,325
things, which also can reveal.

513
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:42,390
The world, ourselves, our emotions in
a fresh way and sometimes even open up

514
00:32:42,430 --> 00:32:44,930
completely new ways of seeing something.

515
00:32:45,150 --> 00:32:51,120
And how has your work as a philosopher and
academic sort of influenced your creative

516
00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:56,920
writing in being a poet and specifically
in relation to the theme of death?

517
00:32:57,230 --> 00:33:01,630
Yeah, maybe it's two ways I'd
like to answer that question.

518
00:33:02,020 --> 00:33:06,520
I think philosophy, you know,
traditionally addresses the really.

519
00:33:06,695 --> 00:33:11,415
big questions, you know, questions
to do with life and death, meaning,

520
00:33:11,825 --> 00:33:16,495
less kind of bold metaphysics today
than there used to be in philosophy.

521
00:33:16,495 --> 00:33:20,545
But, you know, questions about
life after death, God, and so on.

522
00:33:20,565 --> 00:33:26,155
So, I think philosophy has this way of,
yeah, approaching big themes that might

523
00:33:26,155 --> 00:33:31,595
be also approached in religion, certainly
in theology, which, you know, overlaps

524
00:33:31,595 --> 00:33:35,215
with importantly, in important ways.

525
00:33:35,705 --> 00:33:42,300
And I think Poetry deals with those themes
too, or can, but there's a tension there

526
00:33:42,380 --> 00:33:47,390
as well because you don't want a poem to
sound like a philosophical essay, right?

527
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,480
If that's what you want to do, then you
write philosophy, you don't write a poem.

528
00:33:51,490 --> 00:33:53,190
So poems do something unique.

529
00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,160
But I think, yeah, I said the place
in which I write a poem is different

530
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:02,200
from the sort of mindset I have to be
in when I'm writing philosophy or even

531
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:07,175
considering a poem, like interpreting
a poem in the scholarly essay from

532
00:34:07,185 --> 00:34:09,815
a philosophical, um, point of view.

533
00:34:10,045 --> 00:34:15,665
But I think philosophy gives you a sense
for some of these big themes in a way

534
00:34:16,005 --> 00:34:19,165
that can be helpful to poetry, though I
don't think, you know, every poet needs

535
00:34:19,165 --> 00:34:22,565
to also pursue philosophy as a discipline.

536
00:34:22,595 --> 00:34:25,080
I think it can give orientation.

537
00:34:25,450 --> 00:34:30,290
And I think death is central
to both poetry and philosophy,

538
00:34:30,780 --> 00:34:32,290
but in different ways.

539
00:34:32,330 --> 00:34:36,440
In the 20th century, there's a
bigger, starts with Heidegger,

540
00:34:36,510 --> 00:34:37,850
the German philosopher.

541
00:34:38,410 --> 00:34:43,580
This sort of defines human existence as
being towards death, and that we have

542
00:34:43,580 --> 00:34:49,915
to kind of have our death and mortality
in view in order to live authentically

543
00:34:49,955 --> 00:34:54,195
and sort of make decisions in an
authentic way and shape our own lives.

544
00:34:54,335 --> 00:34:56,985
And it was taken up by
others like Sartre and so on.

545
00:34:57,505 --> 00:35:01,825
And yeah, so that's a case where, you
know, I've done reading, which also

546
00:35:01,945 --> 00:35:06,435
plays into my poetry, my understanding
of poetry, my work on Rilke, right?

547
00:35:06,485 --> 00:35:07,405
Essay I mentioned.

548
00:35:07,830 --> 00:35:11,100
earlier is partly trying to show
that Rilke has a, because he's often

549
00:35:11,100 --> 00:35:14,310
interpreted within this context,
even though he was writing earlier

550
00:35:14,310 --> 00:35:15,720
than some of these philosophers.

551
00:35:16,310 --> 00:35:19,840
But I see a kind of more spiritual
dimension in Rilke's poetry too.

552
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:21,250
So it is partly about that.

553
00:35:21,250 --> 00:35:25,630
He's got poems directly dealing with
like the way in which awareness of

554
00:35:25,630 --> 00:35:30,160
death and our mortality wakes us up
to the meaning of our lives or what.

555
00:35:30,395 --> 00:35:31,105
it can mean.

556
00:35:31,635 --> 00:35:36,385
But there's also, I think, a sense
in his poetry of a kind of more

557
00:35:36,385 --> 00:35:40,435
spiritual connection to those who
have died and a kind of inspiration

558
00:35:40,475 --> 00:35:42,795
even from those who have died.

559
00:35:42,885 --> 00:35:45,225
I mean, it's a big question how
you understand that, but it's

560
00:35:45,225 --> 00:35:47,915
certainly a motif in his poetry.

561
00:35:48,090 --> 00:35:51,470
It's interesting, I, just while you were
talking, it made me think that there was

562
00:35:51,470 --> 00:35:55,830
a book that I, I'm just looking at in my
bookshelf that was written by Rachel and

563
00:35:55,850 --> 00:36:02,520
Ross Menzies, and it's called Mortals, How
the Fear of Death Shaped Human Society.

564
00:36:02,530 --> 00:36:03,950
Have you read that book at all, Luke?

565
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,940
No, I haven't, but that's, it
sounds like an interesting book.

566
00:36:07,940 --> 00:36:10,990
Yeah, because there's something
that particularly struck you in.

567
00:36:11,405 --> 00:36:18,315
Yeah, just that, uh, when you were talking
about when in context of philosophy,

568
00:36:18,775 --> 00:36:24,325
how there were certain philosophers that
thought that we needed to be aware of

569
00:36:24,325 --> 00:36:29,775
our death to become our authentic self
or bring out or our authentic self.

570
00:36:29,825 --> 00:36:36,805
And from reading that book, it was saying
about a lot of our anxieties in life

571
00:36:37,015 --> 00:36:40,465
is really based on anxiety about death.

572
00:36:41,410 --> 00:36:46,810
And I'd love your thoughts on that in
what you've seen from a philosophical

573
00:36:46,810 --> 00:36:53,490
perspective in how people could learn to
live better or embrace, you know, death.

574
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,170
What has it taught you
about death philosophy?

575
00:36:56,300 --> 00:36:59,990
I think philosophy, you know,
has definitely taught me to

576
00:36:59,990 --> 00:37:02,340
think about death more clearly.

577
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:07,325
And there are certain philosophers,
you know, have particularly influenced

578
00:37:07,325 --> 00:37:09,435
the way I think about death.

579
00:37:09,845 --> 00:37:13,035
But in a certain sense, I think,
yeah, so it's good for sort of

580
00:37:13,065 --> 00:37:15,185
conceptualizing these matters.

581
00:37:15,425 --> 00:37:19,745
But I think poetry is probably
more profound in the way it can

582
00:37:19,835 --> 00:37:24,875
bring us in relation to death,
into a mindful relation to death.

583
00:37:24,905 --> 00:37:29,065
And it was something I spoke a
lot, a bit about in the context of

584
00:37:29,085 --> 00:37:31,065
the workshop, the death and dying.

585
00:37:31,370 --> 00:37:32,070
festival.

586
00:37:32,590 --> 00:37:36,250
I think the way I put it there was
something like psychological, like

587
00:37:36,350 --> 00:37:41,390
this kind of psychological integration
that can happen if we learn through

588
00:37:41,410 --> 00:37:44,730
poetry to dwell with grief and death.

589
00:37:44,990 --> 00:37:49,540
And these emotions, um, this again
referred to Rilkewian, was very central

590
00:37:49,540 --> 00:37:54,850
to his work, that the significance of
dark emotions actually shift and rather

591
00:37:54,850 --> 00:38:02,135
than fleeing them, we Can realize a more
expansive kind of awareness because by

592
00:38:02,175 --> 00:38:08,695
running from death and trying to hide from
our own mortality and those of others,

593
00:38:08,775 --> 00:38:13,655
this division is happening inside us
and closing us off to a richer sense of

594
00:38:13,655 --> 00:38:15,855
ourselves and our world and, you know.

595
00:38:16,445 --> 00:38:19,095
perhaps depending on your
spiritual beliefs of the

596
00:38:19,135 --> 00:38:21,335
universe, metaphysical questions.

597
00:38:22,175 --> 00:38:26,135
It's interesting because it seems
that the philosophy is certainly

598
00:38:26,195 --> 00:38:30,335
the thinking, but the poetry is
definitely the emotions, isn't it?

599
00:38:30,625 --> 00:38:34,565
Yeah, I mean, I think there's thinking in
poetry too, and it depends on the poet,

600
00:38:34,605 --> 00:38:38,775
and there are more philosophical poets,
I think, and less philosophical poets, or

601
00:38:38,775 --> 00:38:41,425
even poems by the same poet that are more.

602
00:38:41,475 --> 00:38:45,285
But I think Poetry's have this
capacity, yeah, to integrate our

603
00:38:45,285 --> 00:38:48,655
effective life and intellectual life.

604
00:38:48,675 --> 00:38:53,905
And, and this was a key idea that I,
you know, I hold myself, but in the sort

605
00:38:53,905 --> 00:38:58,345
of romantic era, that was a big idea,
starting with Friedrich Schiller, who

606
00:38:58,345 --> 00:39:03,405
was a philosopher and poet and wrote
these letters on aesthetic education.

607
00:39:03,405 --> 00:39:07,605
So it's art more generally,
including poetry, but he had this

608
00:39:07,705 --> 00:39:11,165
central idea that art and poetry.

609
00:39:11,660 --> 00:39:15,630
integrate the rational and
sensuous sides of human nature.

610
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:21,100
So it kind of lifts, like, the difference
between, you know, enjoying a meal or

611
00:39:21,100 --> 00:39:26,320
satisfying some kind of sensuous desire
and appreciating the colors in a painting.

612
00:39:26,410 --> 00:39:31,280
That's sort of, for him, there's something
almost rational about the way we behold

613
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:35,910
a painting in contrast to enjoying
the meal, but it involves our senses.

614
00:39:35,910 --> 00:39:36,750
And anyway.

615
00:39:37,020 --> 00:39:41,120
It's a big subject, but this idea
that, that art integrates parts of

616
00:39:41,250 --> 00:39:45,860
selves that can otherwise be divided
or in conflict with one another.

617
00:39:46,170 --> 00:39:50,400
My, you know, my desires on the
one hand, and my ideas about what

618
00:39:50,700 --> 00:39:54,370
the good is and the moral on the
other, like they can be in conflict.

619
00:39:54,370 --> 00:39:57,670
And he thought art was this
kind of integrates the person.

620
00:39:57,770 --> 00:40:01,600
And that was taken up by various
thinkers in the romantic and, you

621
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:03,630
know, shaped by the philosophers.

622
00:40:03,795 --> 00:40:04,715
and poets too.

623
00:40:04,765 --> 00:40:09,705
So I do think poetry, yeah, has
this capacity to integrate, in a

624
00:40:09,705 --> 00:40:14,035
way, the emotional and the rational,
and of course the imaginative.

625
00:40:14,035 --> 00:40:14,255
Is

626
00:40:14,735 --> 00:40:19,455
it possible for you to share a poem or
a passage that you feel best captures

627
00:40:19,485 --> 00:40:21,955
your thoughts on mortality or death?

628
00:40:22,660 --> 00:40:27,090
Yes, it's always hard to choose what
to read, but I think I will read

629
00:40:27,090 --> 00:40:31,430
this kind of quite more personal
poem rather than, you know, sort

630
00:40:31,430 --> 00:40:35,220
of mythological poem about Orpheus,
which I would love to read as well.

631
00:40:35,230 --> 00:40:38,430
I mean, they're much longer, but
I thought, I think it is worth

632
00:40:38,460 --> 00:40:42,735
mentioning that my father Orpheus,
died when I was very young.

633
00:40:42,865 --> 00:40:45,455
I was a month before I turned four.

634
00:40:46,015 --> 00:40:50,405
And so this death, you know,
probably is the event in my life.

635
00:40:50,595 --> 00:40:54,085
I don't want to say some significant
event in my life because that might

636
00:40:54,085 --> 00:40:58,205
sound a bit dark in a way, but I think
that, you know, this event, you know,

637
00:40:58,255 --> 00:41:03,425
profoundly shaped me and my sense of
the world and myself and yeah, has

638
00:41:03,425 --> 00:41:05,585
some of my thoughts about mortality.

639
00:41:06,015 --> 00:41:11,065
In it, and I think just like to
add, you know, I'm a father now

640
00:41:11,065 --> 00:41:16,015
and the last thing I'd, you know,
wish on a child is losing a parent.

641
00:41:16,405 --> 00:41:21,425
But when I wrote this poem, it was
also a kind of coming to terms with.

642
00:41:21,930 --> 00:41:28,100
The way that this event had shaped me
and in a way seeing, even though, you

643
00:41:28,100 --> 00:41:32,410
know, I wish I could undo the event and
I'm, you know, my life would have been

644
00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:37,170
quite different had this not happened
to see something positive in it too.

645
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:42,900
That there's something, you know, an
acceptance of, in a sense, one's fate,

646
00:41:42,980 --> 00:41:44,980
or at least the events of one's life.

647
00:41:45,460 --> 00:41:50,640
So, I'll read this short poem, and it
goes back into, in a way, my experience

648
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:55,319
as a child, and it was quite a therapeutic
poem to write, or I had something of that.

649
00:41:55,570 --> 00:41:56,100
function.

650
00:41:56,410 --> 00:41:59,730
And had you written
this Luke, as a father?

651
00:42:00,190 --> 00:42:04,070
I actually wrote this
before I became a father.

652
00:42:04,330 --> 00:42:04,810
Yeah.

653
00:42:05,060 --> 00:42:07,430
I'm not quite sure when I wrote the poem.

654
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,770
So this book, this second
book of poems came out.

655
00:42:11,075 --> 00:42:15,875
In 2017, and my daughter was born later
that year, but I would have written

656
00:42:15,885 --> 00:42:18,405
the poem, you know, before that.

657
00:42:19,025 --> 00:42:21,295
So, is this out of a
personal history of vision?

658
00:42:21,575 --> 00:42:23,235
This is a personal history of vision.

659
00:42:23,775 --> 00:42:24,205
Death.

660
00:42:25,175 --> 00:42:29,115
My father had vanished without warning.

661
00:42:29,825 --> 00:42:35,825
At the age of four, I was
shocked into the truth of life.

662
00:42:36,565 --> 00:42:41,245
Others, old and young, seemed unaware.

663
00:42:41,985 --> 00:42:46,195
They kept on living, as
if there were no end.

664
00:42:46,925 --> 00:42:51,105
Their smiles were false,
like TV commercials.

665
00:42:52,025 --> 00:42:55,625
Darkness found a home in me.

666
00:42:56,365 --> 00:43:05,475
I saw the emptiness behind glossy
surfaces, the vacuum seal of irony.

667
00:43:06,245 --> 00:43:09,955
I learned to love the pre dawn hours.

668
00:43:10,535 --> 00:43:11,755
In the darkness.

669
00:43:12,730 --> 00:43:19,930
I found my star in its soil,
sprouts a mustard seed.

670
00:43:21,100 --> 00:43:23,550
That was really beautiful, thank
you for sharing that, Luke.

671
00:43:24,230 --> 00:43:24,610
Thanks.

672
00:43:24,990 --> 00:43:28,750
Yeah, so there's this theme of, maybe
I'll say a few words about it, a kind

673
00:43:28,750 --> 00:43:33,380
of darkness, which I think is something
we experience around death, don't we?

674
00:43:33,380 --> 00:43:35,250
It's kind of like almost
this inner darkness.

675
00:43:37,025 --> 00:43:40,395
And in a certain sense, the
absence of the one who's died.

676
00:43:40,655 --> 00:43:44,455
And, you know, I wrote that poem in
a quite like, like wrestling with

677
00:43:44,455 --> 00:43:49,595
something in my kind of psyche, so to
speak, but you can see themes coming

678
00:43:49,595 --> 00:43:54,595
out, although in a way emerged in this
quite concrete and direct way, you know,

679
00:43:54,625 --> 00:43:59,045
themes that I've already mentioned from
philosophy in a way about death and

680
00:43:59,075 --> 00:44:03,065
authenticity and this kind of waking up
through the experience of death, waking

681
00:44:03,065 --> 00:44:05,125
up in my case, I would say too early.

682
00:44:05,775 --> 00:44:09,125
And in the end there's this
image of the, you know, the star.

683
00:44:09,825 --> 00:44:12,215
I don't want to over interpret
my own poems because I think

684
00:44:12,235 --> 00:44:13,655
other people should do that.

685
00:44:13,725 --> 00:44:17,455
But I will say then there's this mustard
seed, which is an allusion to the

686
00:44:17,455 --> 00:44:22,075
parable in Matthew about the kingdom
of heaven being like a mustard seed.

687
00:44:22,385 --> 00:44:26,895
And so in there, there's this kind of
intimation of a connection between, at

688
00:44:27,035 --> 00:44:31,955
least for me, my current perspective
of acceptance of death and a kind of

689
00:44:31,955 --> 00:44:35,605
spirituality, I would say, which, you
know, we all have different ways of.

690
00:44:35,830 --> 00:44:37,380
responding to these things.

691
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:42,520
But death does raise the ultimate
question for us too about, about whether,

692
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:46,340
you know, it's the end or whether
it's a transition to something else.

693
00:44:46,370 --> 00:44:50,660
And, but I think also it can be
this awakening to oneself as well

694
00:44:50,710 --> 00:44:52,060
in the way we experience death.

695
00:44:52,650 --> 00:44:57,410
Luke, is there any advice that you'd give
to someone who's looking to explore death

696
00:44:57,410 --> 00:44:59,510
and grief through creative expression?

697
00:44:59,840 --> 00:45:02,875
I mean, I guess my first bit
of advice would be to do it.

698
00:45:03,595 --> 00:45:05,585
The question, I guess, is how to do it.

699
00:45:05,765 --> 00:45:10,515
I might end up repeating myself a
bit here, but I think to try and find

700
00:45:10,575 --> 00:45:16,655
that place in oneself that can really
dwell with death and grief without

701
00:45:16,685 --> 00:45:19,095
getting swallowed up by it as well.

702
00:45:19,105 --> 00:45:23,165
I mean, I think some of us have
experienced this too, that in

703
00:45:23,165 --> 00:45:27,695
dealing with grief and the process of
mourning, I found it quite important

704
00:45:28,095 --> 00:45:30,145
with the death of loved ones too.

705
00:45:30,390 --> 00:45:34,580
to dwell in that space, but there's
the danger of getting almost lured

706
00:45:34,580 --> 00:45:37,470
into it and swallowed up by it as well.

707
00:45:37,490 --> 00:45:43,230
So, but to be able to, yeah, dwell with
those subject matters and emotions in a

708
00:45:43,260 --> 00:45:46,600
calm sort of way and let the work emerge.

709
00:45:47,485 --> 00:45:49,035
Out of that space.

710
00:45:49,375 --> 00:45:53,295
I liked when you said before
that you're not always a poet

711
00:45:54,125 --> 00:45:54,355
Like

712
00:45:54,695 --> 00:45:59,815
you it's like a hat that you put on and
it's you know I think that in the very

713
00:45:59,845 --> 00:46:04,955
wee little bit that I've dabbled with
poetry I find that it's a space that

714
00:46:04,955 --> 00:46:11,925
you can go for me personally Where you
can write freely and express freely,

715
00:46:12,075 --> 00:46:17,015
but it's the place that I can also come
out of, so I'm not there all the time.

716
00:46:17,055 --> 00:46:20,915
And I liked how you referred to the
fact that you, it was almost like

717
00:46:20,915 --> 00:46:24,375
a hat that you put on, that, you
know, you're not a poet all the time.

718
00:46:24,375 --> 00:46:27,005
You're also a dad that has
to take care of it, you know.

719
00:46:27,855 --> 00:46:32,054
So yeah, so that was something that
I really resonated when you said

720
00:46:32,055 --> 00:46:34,075
that earlier for me personally.

721
00:46:34,305 --> 00:46:37,745
Is there anything else that you would
like to add before we finish up, Luke?

722
00:46:38,105 --> 00:46:40,835
Yeah, I think maybe just in
response to just what you said,

723
00:46:40,835 --> 00:46:42,095
thinking about it a bit more.

724
00:46:42,510 --> 00:46:46,010
Yeah, that's, it's interesting with
poetry because a lot of people, you

725
00:46:46,010 --> 00:46:49,840
know, find out like sometimes in like
a workshop setting, like at the death

726
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:55,020
and dying festival, you know, people
confess that, you know, I write poems,

727
00:46:55,130 --> 00:46:59,750
but you know, I write them in my
diary and nobody else sees them and

728
00:46:59,750 --> 00:47:01,860
they're not meant for anybody else.

729
00:47:02,635 --> 00:47:05,335
And that's perfectly fine, of course.

730
00:47:05,355 --> 00:47:08,975
And that's, I think, a good thing that
we, you know, have different ways of, you

731
00:47:08,975 --> 00:47:11,155
know, exploring things that matter to us.

732
00:47:11,525 --> 00:47:17,165
But if you're kind of writing poetry
as an art form, then obviously that's

733
00:47:17,165 --> 00:47:21,705
also You know, intended to be published
at some point and read by others,

734
00:47:21,875 --> 00:47:25,615
then the whole question of craft,
of course, becomes a very big one.

735
00:47:25,795 --> 00:47:29,265
You know, poets are different with
this, but some poets will edit poems,

736
00:47:29,285 --> 00:47:32,915
you know, go through a hundred drafts
or something before they print the

737
00:47:32,915 --> 00:47:34,705
poem in a book for somebody to read.

738
00:47:35,205 --> 00:47:38,545
And that's about some of the things
we've talked about, crafting the

739
00:47:38,545 --> 00:47:44,265
language and finding the apt metaphor
and getting the sound right in the

740
00:47:44,265 --> 00:47:46,585
poem and these kinds of things.

741
00:47:46,965 --> 00:47:50,435
And yeah, I mean, I don't
really have any advice there.

742
00:47:50,525 --> 00:47:54,215
I think it's fine and good for people
to explore poetry in a private way,

743
00:47:54,215 --> 00:47:55,965
but it becomes something different.

744
00:47:56,410 --> 00:48:00,970
when it's an art form and pursued as
a work of art that is being shaped.

745
00:48:01,100 --> 00:48:03,820
And for someone who wants to pursue that

746
00:48:03,890 --> 00:48:04,990
as an art form,

747
00:48:05,290 --> 00:48:06,830
what advice do you have to them?

748
00:48:06,830 --> 00:48:07,790
Like, where do they start?

749
00:48:08,260 --> 00:48:11,960
I mean, there are creative writing
programs around at universities.

750
00:48:12,010 --> 00:48:13,400
I did a little bit of study.

751
00:48:13,795 --> 00:48:16,825
After my PhD, I just wanted
to connect with other writers

752
00:48:16,825 --> 00:48:18,095
and get feedback on my work.

753
00:48:18,165 --> 00:48:20,355
So I did some study at
the University of Sydney.

754
00:48:20,935 --> 00:48:24,265
At the time, Judith Beveridge
and David Brooks were teaching

755
00:48:24,265 --> 00:48:26,435
to, you know, wonderful poets.

756
00:48:26,475 --> 00:48:31,295
And David Brooks also, I find, a
scholar of poetry and literature.

757
00:48:31,425 --> 00:48:33,895
So there are creative
writing programs around.

758
00:48:33,905 --> 00:48:35,335
There are workshops around.

759
00:48:35,545 --> 00:48:39,400
But otherwise, I would suggest just
reading lots of poetry, and particularly

760
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:45,060
by, you know, great poets and accomplished
poets, and you read some of the, yeah,

761
00:48:45,090 --> 00:48:47,860
contemporary journals, essays on poetry.

762
00:48:48,900 --> 00:48:51,440
It depends what, you know,
you're looking for exactly.

763
00:48:52,210 --> 00:48:56,230
So Luke, tell me what current projects
are you working on that continue

764
00:48:56,230 --> 00:49:00,220
this sort of exploration between
philosophy and poetry and the deep

765
00:49:00,220 --> 00:49:01,470
connections we've talked about?

766
00:49:01,855 --> 00:49:06,345
Yeah, so I'm kind of at this moment
in a way between projects, but the

767
00:49:06,345 --> 00:49:10,745
most recent project that I finished
is a book called Philosophical

768
00:49:10,755 --> 00:49:15,705
Fragments as the Poetry of Thinking,
Romanticism and the Living Present.

769
00:49:16,165 --> 00:49:19,485
And this is a book of fragments
that I wrote, aphorisms.

770
00:49:20,335 --> 00:49:24,845
Fragment is this German romantic term
for basically writing very short,

771
00:49:25,175 --> 00:49:27,135
mostly quite short philosophical.

772
00:49:27,390 --> 00:49:28,120
ideas.

773
00:49:28,460 --> 00:49:31,910
So there are around 500 fragments
in this book and then an essay

774
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:36,300
on the fragment as a form of
philosophy that's poetic in a way.

775
00:49:36,300 --> 00:49:38,430
So it's a kind of poetic
form of philosophy.

776
00:49:38,430 --> 00:49:41,910
That's the underlying idea in the book.

777
00:49:41,940 --> 00:49:47,430
And that book includes many reflections
on the relationship between philosophy

778
00:49:47,430 --> 00:49:53,770
and poetry, as well as their
differing relationships to death.

779
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,230
Actually, maybe I'll
read two fragments that

780
00:49:56,230 --> 00:49:57,249
are

781
00:49:57,250 --> 00:50:00,540
on this theme, because these
ones are quite short, and they

782
00:50:00,540 --> 00:50:03,040
contrast philosophy and poetry.

783
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:07,840
And yeah, that might make sense
to the listeners on the basis of

784
00:50:07,990 --> 00:50:11,930
what we've already discussed, but
I won't interpret them myself.

785
00:50:11,930 --> 00:50:13,819
So, fragment 200.

786
00:50:15,620 --> 00:50:17,220
Philosophy is death.

787
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:23,000
Its nothingness inhabits
the philosopher, stimulates

788
00:50:23,090 --> 00:50:26,050
wakefulness, self consciousness.

789
00:50:27,220 --> 00:50:28,030
Fragment 250.

790
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:38,530
Death inhabits the poet too, but
poetry gently arches over the sticks.

791
00:50:39,020 --> 00:50:43,190
I'll leave it there with that
somewhat enigmatic fragment.

792
00:50:43,870 --> 00:50:44,890
That was fantastic.

793
00:50:44,900 --> 00:50:46,150
Thanks for sharing that, Luke.

794
00:50:46,710 --> 00:50:47,020
My pleasure.

795
00:50:47,770 --> 00:50:52,040
Well, I can't thank you enough for
sharing your time with us today, Luke.

796
00:50:52,090 --> 00:50:55,360
I really love that you've given
me a bit of an insight to your

797
00:50:55,370 --> 00:50:59,104
creative world, and I really
appreciate you being with us here.

798
00:50:59,325 --> 00:51:00,735
Thank you so much, Catherine.

799
00:51:00,955 --> 00:51:05,345
I've enjoyed it and thank you for the
stimulating questions and conversation.

800
00:51:08,155 --> 00:51:11,575
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801
00:51:11,895 --> 00:51:13,455
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802
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