Only on a true return could you find that you'd never left

[sovay]

On the first of May, my mother told me about a poet who loved volcanoes and Persephone and had just disappeared on a small island in Japan. It was his passionate belief, she said, that poets should go to dangerous places and bring them back in writing; by the time she heard about him on the radio, he had been missing for three or four days, but they were still hoping that his story would end like one of hers, the goddess he cared so much about, and he would come back with pages like pomegranate seeds in his hands. My mother couldn't remember his name, so I looked him up. Craig Arnold. This afternoon, I found out he has been declared dead. Somewhere I hope someone who knew and loved him is writing him a poem in which Persephone and Pele and the kami of Kuchinoerabujima are listening to their praise singer, or making him into something that can slip into the earth's burning heart and back again. I don't have the right to. I just liked his words. The severed head of Orpheus kept on singing, afterward the way poets do.

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Heavens. I'd heard the story on NPR, back round the same time as your mother told you about it, and had meant to look him up, but got caught up in everything else and never got round to it.

I hope so as well. May he rest in peace.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

I hope he found what he was looking for; and, if there is an elsewhere after death, took it with him.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

WOW!

I thought you were writing fiction until you gave the link to the news story.

What a marvelous man. I, who am as timid as timid can be, would like to be like him, and would definitely, definitely like to die like him.

I read a story (The House without Windows, by Barbara Follett) when I was in seventh grade about a girl who ran away to nature and became, eventually, a nature spirit. I *loved* it. I felt like I was reading something some other me had written. I found out later that it had actually been written in the 1920s, completed when the author was 11. She vanished in the woods in Maine at 26. I can hold two thoughts in my head at once, and do: that that was a tragedy, and that that was a transfiguration. (The miracles of the Internet turn up this 1966 review of a biography of her.)

So--all honor and victory to Craig Arnold. And thanks for the link to his poem: it is beautiful.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You do have a right to from the Goddess's POV.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

You have as much right to write about Craig Arnold as you do to write about anyone else, depending on what you choose to write about him, I think. And since you're certainly not contemplating libel, I'm sure he'd probably like you to, if he knew.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

poets should go to dangerous places and bring them back in writing

Such a challenge.

Somewhere I hope someone who knew and loved him is writing him a poem in which Persephone and Pele and the kami of Kuchinoerabujima are listening to their praise singer, or making him into something that can slip into the earth's burning heart and back again.

Me too.

[adaorardor.livejournal.com]

Hi-- I sometimes swing by your journal via Catherynne Valente's friendslist, because, well. Your words are just pretty. (can't fault me for that)

I knew Craig; we were friends through my uncle, and we'd sometimes meet at workshops or poetry slams. I last saw him in the summer, shortly before I left for St. Olaf. We spent the night in a local restaurant eating congealed artichoke dip and talking about my school plans. As memories go, it's a good one. But I keep thinking about how living on the Hill cuts me off from everything at home... I didn't speak with Craig all this year, and then I find he's died. It's disturbing.

So...

Somewhere I hope someone who knew and loved him is writing him a poem in which Persephone and Pele and the kami of Kuchinoerabujima are listening to their praise singer, or making him into something that can slip into the earth's burning heart and back again.

That was good to read. Good to think. I don't feel half so heartsick.

[sovay]

That was good to read. Good to think. I don't feel half so heartsick.

Thank you. I am glad—however oddly—to have helped.

Maybe you should write that poem.

[mamishka.livejournal.com]

How terribly sad! I just looked him up and read one of his poem's, The Bird-Understander and it brought me to tears because I've been exactly there and thought those very things.

He reminds me, at least in this instance, very much of Billy Collins, whom I love because I find his poetry both beautiful and highly accessible.

I'm glad to have had Craig Arnold brought to my attention, but am sad that it had to be in this way. I hope that they keep looking for him! I hate the idea of 'presumed' dead. I wish they could find his body so that there can be true closure for his family. In the world of fantasy and movie scripts, I wish that he was actually alive, being tended by some kind hermitical Samaritan, and would emerge from the wilds one day, whole and well and bursting with fantastic stories to tell and poems to write.

I concur with others - if you are inspired to write a poem about him, you should do so. People have written poems for less reasons than this, and no one will write the poem that you will. If you do indeed 'owe' me a poem (which I don't think you do), this is the one that I would like to read. :-)

[sovay]

If you do indeed 'owe' me a poem (which I don't think you do), this is the one that I would like to read.

Thank you . . . It is taken under consideration.