March 8, 2022 • SPEAKER SERIES • Stimulating the Satori Moment in Poems
7:00 PM EST
Satori is a Japanese Zen Buddhist term for awakening comprehension and deep understanding. It is derived from the Japanese verb satoru, “to know”. But rather than intending a philosophical concept of knowledge, satori concentrates instead on the “acquiring of a new point of view in our dealings with life and the world,” or more simply, reaching Enlightenment. In poetry, satori is often a culminating moment when the poem wakes us up and startles us into a new awareness. This talk will show how Gallagher takes simple elements – such as the moon, water, a bridge, or other sets of catalysts – and attempts to stimulate this moment. As an example, Gallagher offers her poem, “Recognition”:
Staring down from the bridge
at the moon
broken up
in the river, who
could know, without looking
up, it stands whole above
its shattered self.
Another famous example of the “satori moment" is James Wright’s poem “A Blessing” which ends: “Suddenly I realize/That if I stepped out of my body I would break/Into blossom.” Gallagher notes that the word “suddenly” is a clue to the effect the satori moment creates. One suddenly is overtaken by a feeling, a conjunction of forces, a lightning strike of transport that breaks open the moment so freshly one can’t ever think the same way again.
Gallagher hopes this talk might stimulate you to write some fresh poems in search of this mindset. Recently she has been writing what she calls Tess-Zen poems consisting of about six or seven words, which she plans to share in addition to her discussion of satori and working in the compressed space.
About Tess Gallagher:
Tess Gallagher’s eleventh volume of poetry, Is, Is Not, was published May 2019 by Graywolf Press. Her Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems, is the most comprehensive offering of her poems to date. Other poetry collections include Dear Ghosts and Moon Crossing Bridge. Gallagher’s The Man from Kinvara: Selected Stories is the basis for film episodes under development. She spends time in a cottage on Lough Arrow in Co. Sligo in the West of Ireland where many of her new poems are set, and also lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
7:00 PM EST
Satori is a Japanese Zen Buddhist term for awakening comprehension and deep understanding. It is derived from the Japanese verb satoru, “to know”. But rather than intending a philosophical concept of knowledge, satori concentrates instead on the “acquiring of a new point of view in our dealings with life and the world,” or more simply, reaching Enlightenment. In poetry, satori is often a culminating moment when the poem wakes us up and startles us into a new awareness. This talk will show how Gallagher takes simple elements – such as the moon, water, a bridge, or other sets of catalysts – and attempts to stimulate this moment. As an example, Gallagher offers her poem, “Recognition”:
Staring down from the bridge
at the moon
broken up
in the river, who
could know, without looking
up, it stands whole above
its shattered self.
Another famous example of the “satori moment" is James Wright’s poem “A Blessing” which ends: “Suddenly I realize/That if I stepped out of my body I would break/Into blossom.” Gallagher notes that the word “suddenly” is a clue to the effect the satori moment creates. One suddenly is overtaken by a feeling, a conjunction of forces, a lightning strike of transport that breaks open the moment so freshly one can’t ever think the same way again.
Gallagher hopes this talk might stimulate you to write some fresh poems in search of this mindset. Recently she has been writing what she calls Tess-Zen poems consisting of about six or seven words, which she plans to share in addition to her discussion of satori and working in the compressed space.
About Tess Gallagher:
Tess Gallagher’s eleventh volume of poetry, Is, Is Not, was published May 2019 by Graywolf Press. Her Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems, is the most comprehensive offering of her poems to date. Other poetry collections include Dear Ghosts and Moon Crossing Bridge. Gallagher’s The Man from Kinvara: Selected Stories is the basis for film episodes under development. She spends time in a cottage on Lough Arrow in Co. Sligo in the West of Ireland where many of her new poems are set, and also lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
7:00 PM EST
Satori is a Japanese Zen Buddhist term for awakening comprehension and deep understanding. It is derived from the Japanese verb satoru, “to know”. But rather than intending a philosophical concept of knowledge, satori concentrates instead on the “acquiring of a new point of view in our dealings with life and the world,” or more simply, reaching Enlightenment. In poetry, satori is often a culminating moment when the poem wakes us up and startles us into a new awareness. This talk will show how Gallagher takes simple elements – such as the moon, water, a bridge, or other sets of catalysts – and attempts to stimulate this moment. As an example, Gallagher offers her poem, “Recognition”:
Staring down from the bridge
at the moon
broken up
in the river, who
could know, without looking
up, it stands whole above
its shattered self.
Another famous example of the “satori moment" is James Wright’s poem “A Blessing” which ends: “Suddenly I realize/That if I stepped out of my body I would break/Into blossom.” Gallagher notes that the word “suddenly” is a clue to the effect the satori moment creates. One suddenly is overtaken by a feeling, a conjunction of forces, a lightning strike of transport that breaks open the moment so freshly one can’t ever think the same way again.
Gallagher hopes this talk might stimulate you to write some fresh poems in search of this mindset. Recently she has been writing what she calls Tess-Zen poems consisting of about six or seven words, which she plans to share in addition to her discussion of satori and working in the compressed space.
About Tess Gallagher:
Tess Gallagher’s eleventh volume of poetry, Is, Is Not, was published May 2019 by Graywolf Press. Her Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems, is the most comprehensive offering of her poems to date. Other poetry collections include Dear Ghosts and Moon Crossing Bridge. Gallagher’s The Man from Kinvara: Selected Stories is the basis for film episodes under development. She spends time in a cottage on Lough Arrow in Co. Sligo in the West of Ireland where many of her new poems are set, and also lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington.
Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
