Bottom’s
Dream
by
Joseph S. Salemi
I
have had a most
rare vision. I
have had a dream,
past the wit of
man to say what
dream it was…
The eye of man
hath not heard,
the ear of man
hath not seen,
man’s hand
is not able to
taste, his tongue
to conceive, nor
his heart to report,
what my dream
was. I will get
Peter Quince to
write a ballad
of this dream:
it shall be called
‘Bottom’s
Dream,’
because it hath
no bottom.
—A
Midsummer Night’s
Dream, Act IV,
scene 1
Everyone knows
how Bottom the
Weaver became
an ass, and was
then magically
transformed back
into his asinine
human self. It’s
a delightful side-plot
in Shakespeare’s
most ethereal
of plays, that
wonderful jeu
d’esprit
of masque
and antic-masque
spectacle called
A Midsummer
Night’s
Dream.
I bring it up
here because an
examination of
Bottom’s
words upon awakening
from his trance
tells us something
important about
the composition
of poetry, and
why so many would-be
practitioners
of the art go
astray. It’s
as if Shakespeare,
our sublimest
wordsmith, were
putting into the
mouth of an ass
the perfect recipe
for bad poetry.
Bottom—like
so many naïve
young poets—has
had a transforming
experience. Something
great and moving
has happened to
him. He has been
lifted out of
his ordinary mundane
sphere and transported
to a realm of
mysterious delight
and exalted perception.
And what is the
result? Well,
it’s predictable:
He wants to
write a poem about
it.
I hasten to add
that there’s
nothing intrinsically
wrong with doing
such a thing.
I recall a summer’s
day over forty
years ago when
I was swept up
by some divine
afflatus, and
wrote my first
serious poem.
It was along a
deserted stretch
of beach on Long
Island, and I
felt the power
of the Muses pick
me up and strum
me like a lyre.
The experience
was unforgettable.
But when I look
back today at
the poem that
resulted, it strikes
me as overblown
and mediocre,
and not at all
up to the wonderful
Dionysian explosion
that was its occasion.
Great feeling
doesn’t
guarantee great
poetry. Why is
that so hard for
my students to
comprehend?
The biggest obstacle
I face as a teacher
of poetry is this
near-universal
tendency of beginning
poets to want
to put into poetic
form an actual
feeling or experience
that has been
of earthshaking
significance to
them. Indeed,
many of these
young people have
signed up in my
poetry seminar
for the sole purpose
of giving verbal
expression to
some sort of ineffable
event or perception.
My heart sinks
when I read those
first drafts of
a youthful awakening,
or the disappointment
of prom night,
or the vulgar
details of a sexual
deflowering, or
the detritus of
some ill-starred
liaison. The writers
of these first
drafts seem to
think that because
such an experience
was important
to them, it necessarily
will be important
to other people.
Like Bottom, they
misunderstand.
No one cares about
your “most
rare vision.”
Thinking that
they do is like
imagining that
strangers want
to hear the details
of your arthritis
attacks, or how
your grandchildren
are doing in pre-school.
Believe me, they
don’t want
to know.
But the beginning
student won’t
accept that fact.
He fights against
it. He has “something
to say,”
and he wants to
say it, come hell
or high water.
And like Bottom,
he cannot seem
to get his eye,
ear, hand, tongue,
and heart into
perfect alignment
so as to express
his special experience
in precisely the
terms that it
deserves.
This is what I
find most maddening
in those poetry
seminars—when
the student keeps
going on and on
about how he hasn’t
quite “captured
the reality”
of his remembered
experience, or
how the words
of his draft “don’t
precisely express”
what he was thinking
or feeling or
doing or perceiving
or Whatever-The-Hell-Else
was going on when
he had his great
epiphany. And
he wants to spend
the entire semester
fine-tuning that
first draft until
it perfectly meshes
with the incident
that it purports
to describe.
I try to explain
to such students
that they are
going about poetic
composition in
a totally ass-backwards
way, as we say
here in Brooklyn.
In poetry, the
important thing
isn’t your
great transforming
experience. The
important thing
is the text that
you put down on
the page.
I recall one teenage
girl who wouldn’t
let go of some
vague childhood
memory of being
in a closet, and
smelling the strong
scent of her father’s
overcoat. She
was desperate
to express this
experience in
a poem. After
three weeks of
listening to her
nebulous reminiscences
on this incident,
I lost patience
and said “Look—will
you just do
something
with it?”
She said “But
nothing really
happened—I
just recall vividly
the scent of the
overcoat.”
I answered “Well,
make
something happen.
Turn it into a
poem about your
father molesting
you in the closet.”
She blanched,
and dropped the
class.
I never tire of
pointing out the
ineradicable Puritanism
of Americans,
their earnest
belief that everything
ought to have
a practical purpose
and a worthwhile
goal. Everyone
in the nation,
both Christian
and non-Christian,
seems to be infected
with this Low-Church
Protestant notion
that we have a
duty to be truthful
and honest at
all times, in
order to “do
the right thing”
or “accomplish
something positive”
or some other
Sunday-School
bromide. When
you suffer from
that kind of intellectual
disability, you
can’t write
poetry except
as a form or proselytizing,
or as a recherché
sort of affidavit
about your personal
feelings and experiences.
It’s a terrible
handicap in an
art where sophisticated
techniques of
feigning and lying
are traditional
tools of the trade.
The point about
Bottom’s
dream is that
“it hath
no bottom.”
Or to put it more
prosaically, actual
human experiences,
in and of themselves,
don’t necessarily
have a substantial
enough basis to
provide us with
the material for
poetry. We have
to change them
and embellish
them. We have
to improvise and
patch. We have
to completely
re-imagine them
and—if necessary—totally
discard them in
favor of something
that will make
for more compelling
poetry. In short,
we have to lie.
A lot of people
just can’t
bring themselves
to do that. They
are incorrigible
Low-Church Protestants,
and they won’t
lie. Which is
fine with me,
but like Bottom
the Ass, they
ought to avoid
writing poetry.
©
2008 by Joseph
S. Salemi
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