Making a Myth: by Devi Laskar

 The late poet Stanley Kunitz gave several talks in and around Manhattan while I was still a graduate student in New York, and I was fortunate enough to hear him speak. One of the themes that ran through his amazing body of work and through his talks, was the theme of mythology.

Professor Kunitz always talked about the idea of turning one’s personal triumphs and tragedies into a story that had more universal appeal, something with a hero and a villain, something with a beginning, middle and end, that readers could relate to. This sage advice was not just for poets, but for all writers.

To paraphrase him, it’s not our births and deaths we should be overly concerned about – the bookends, so to speak — but the manner in which will live, how we gain our victories and suffer our defeats, this is the stuff of our stories, this is the stuff of our legends and myths.

I read up on Kunitz after hearing him speak and he had a life that was full of adversities and setbacks, yet his body of work is so polished and accessible and blooms with truths. I wrote a poem about it and I’m enclosing it in today’s post.

 

Response to Mr. K’s Directive (To Make Myself a Myth)

Making a legend out of your life

would not be such an epic task.

You have the requisite matriarch

who doubles as the heroine;

and your proud papa passed on, sadly.

As Aeneas, you search for him

when you’re embracing the cold night; dreams

you’re able to translate at noon.

Speaking in sign, scouring unpronounced

memories, lullabies, hymns, psalms;

any balm to soothe the nagging wound.

 

My life is still a confession, one

no collared priest will ever hear.

I appear too ordinary to trouble you to unearth my scars.

My parents are monstrously sane.

My childhood altogether quiet,

but I’m haunted by cold and dark.

No, mythology is out of question

except, perhaps, if you made a map

of my hidden subcontinent

and the legend measured inches.

 

What are the themes and stories in your own life that are waiting to be told? How might the elements of your story rise to the level of myth?