The I in Tradition: Editor’s Discussion, December 2022

Dear Readers,

The lyric I is the specter and the muse of contemporary American poetry. When you encounter that self or voice, the I of a lyric poem, you may assume it is the author or somehow related to or associated with the author, though you may discover complications in that voice when reading the poem. Echoes of the lyric I are all over the Poem of the Day newsletter selections. Think of the immense popularity of lyric confessional poems like those of Sylvia Plath, whose complicated I has long mesmerized readers of Ariel. Think of contemporary writers such as Claudia Rankine, who, in Citizen, lyrically explores race and racism to trouble the universality of the I and the myth of singular experience in America. I is everywhere.

When considering individual poems, the lyric I is only assumed to be universal or complete. Every poem’s I, every moment of subjectivity in a poem, is different and depends on readers, who project assumptions and judgments of many kinds onto that I for whatever they or their milieus assume. The poem is autobiographical only in myth, as Olena Kalytiak Davis snarkily points out in “The Lyric “I” Drives to Pick up Her Children from School: A Poem in the Postconfessional Mode”:

…It relates not what has occurred but what should have occurred, presenting an idealized image of the poet as representative of his literary school”

Myth in itself can become a system that reifies the assumptions that the lyric I is meant to undermine. The traditions that we are born into, whether systemic or individual, can become painful snares. We are both anti-racist and harbor bias. We are the fighters and also the battles themselves. We are part of the system, and the knowledge of unconscious traditions inside this system we struggle with is often overwhelming. 

The winter holidays have been systemically co-opted to ensnare us in the I and its guilt and keep us on the side of consumption and capital. We are not supposed to talk politics or religion at the dinner table, yet we are in community with those we love, those we may want to include, and those we swear to protect. The Western holidays of the winter season are shrouded in American shame and colonial ghosts, and individualistic opportunism is at the heart of American dreams, which are, for others, its nightmares.

My wish for you this holiday season is pause, clarity, and then movement with and in all these difficult topics.Winter is a dark season, and when we cannot see, we cannot move forward. The candles on the Christmas tree or the menorah or the kinara–and the candle as a raw symbol–are light in the darkness. Candles offer a path and light the way, regardless of who holds them or whom they represent. There’s something really beautiful in revealing yourself to yourself; this is a step in the direction of healing. Bring candles to yourself and to others. Candles burn, and that is painful. However, revelation is the only way to recognize and to discover change. We can be better, and to be better, we have to know better. 

As part of your holiday preparations, try to give the gift of healing and light. As Olena Kalytiak Davis writes near the end of the poem, in an oblique meditation on lyrics and lyricism:

“i” notices dylan is almost done singing “to ramona”.

“i” loves “everything passes, everything changes, just do what you think you should do.”

“i” thinks dylan is singing to “i” .

“i” thinks he means now, and now, and now; daily.

Work with your I. Do what you think you can and should do, now, and now, daily.

People power, compassion, and love to you and your loved ones during the holidays,

Robert Eric Shoemaker