SOLO

An interesting take - I've never thought that Tennyson felt himself inferior to other writers, particularly with any allegorical statements that might be lurking in The Lady of Shalott. In reading Tennyson’s writing, and his letters, I’ve often thought that he felt he wasn’t “good” enough in a Christian moral sense. I believe he did have moments of thinking he didn’t make the grade in a Victorian world where any sensuality was suspect.

I have always felt that in ‘The Lady of Shalott’ he was making a statement about the necessary isolation and separation an artist feels, solitude that is sometimes sublime and sometimes harrowing until one begins to feel that they are “half sick of shadows,” and perhaps the sacrifices are too much. But then, when one begins to ‘read into’ poems, one undeniably ‘reads in’ exactly what suits themself. Of course, it is me who is half sick of shadows and they are not necessarily literary.

There is a flip side, of course, and when we are in that space, everything flows and the silence and solitude are supremely sublime.

The exchange below happened between a fellow poet and myself. I had just told him about having seen a magnificent production of Romeo and Juliet which had a record number of understudies. Romeo was terribly ill, his understudy was at his mother’s funeral. The second understudy was being rushed back from Arizona when his airplane was struck by lightening sitting on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport. Of course, there was no understudy #3, but an incredibly brave actor took the plunge and said he would go on as Romeo - carrying a script. In the meanwhile, the company had been struck by flu and Lady Capulet fell down the stairs and broke her leg. This is all true. Every time they put someone into a part, that person’s original part was left open and someone else had to be inserted. When all the dominos had tumbled, there were a record number of NINE understudies on the stage.

The point of all this was that the play turned out to be one of the best productions of R&J I had ever seen and the reason was that this slap-dash, pieced together ensemble worked together so magnificently that it made the entire production sing.

On the other hand - we said to each other - ‘ensemble work’ is not what we have chosen. We have chosen to work alone.

I'm sure Billy Shakespeare would also appreciate the motleyed chaos of that understudy-rich production of "Romeo." There must have been nights when "The Mousetrap" came off more like like the "palpable gross play" of "Pyramus & Thisbe." Winging it, that's the actor's verbal dance on the precipice of the stage. Sometimes when I'm writing a poem I experience something like that, as in, there is this music I'm following, dunno where it's going, dunno what I'll find, too late to turn back now, it's play that high strange music or tumble hair nose and eyeballs all the way down into mediocrity. Don't always make it (usually don't make it), but the jaunts are instructive. You learn to write on wind.

Ah! And do you ever wish there were someone else in the wings to hand you your wig? Another soul waiting on stage? Someone to ‘play off of?’ Cast, crew, ensemble, corps de anyone? Is it lonely in the deep stretches of morning? Or is that the exact WHY of where we are? At four a.m., I’m a solitary player in endless monologue; eternal soliloquy; an unaccompanied soloist with no choir, dancing alone on a wind of words; who never wanted to be anywhere else in the world. I choose the silence, the hush, the glorious, golden sound of no applause . . . .

And yet again . . . what are we doing HERE? Looking for someone to hand us our wig?

Oh, thank you, Saint Irony, you dirty dog. THAT was little too close to the bone.

Edwina ~ Eternally Wondering