AA Poet Jessica Hagedorn

Jessica Hagedorn is a poet, playwright, storyteller, and musician. Born to a Scots-Irish-French-Filipino mother and a Spanish-Chinese-Filipino, she was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. In 1963, she moved to San Francisco to learn at the American Conservatory Theater training program. She eventually moved to New York to pursue other opportunities in playwriting and music.

One poem that caught my eye was published in her book Danger and Beauty. It was published in 2002, but it has a collection of poems that date back to the late 1960s. In particular her poem Sorcery caught my eye (and I don’t know why).

Sorcery

there are some people I know
whose beauty
is a crime.
who make you so crazy
you don't know
whether to throw yourself
at them
or kill them.
which makes
for permanent madness.
which could be
bad for you.
you better be on the lookout
for such circumstances.

stay away
from the night.
they most likely lurk
in the corners of the room
where they think
they being inconspicuous
but they so beautiful
an aura
gives them away.

stay away
form the day.
they most likely
be walking
down the street
when you least
expect it
trying to look
ordinary
but they so fine
they break your heart
by making you dream
of other possibilities.

stay away
from crazy music.
they most likely
be creating it
cuz
when you're that beautiful
you can't help
putting it out there.
everyone knows
how dangerous
that can get.

stay away
from magic shows.
especially those
involving words
words are very
tricky things.
everyone knows
words
the most common
instruments of
illusion.

they most likely
be saying them.
breathing poems
so rhythmic
you can't help
but dance.

and once
you start dancing
to words
you might never
stop.


I am far from a literary critic/interpreter, but I managed to get a feeling that she was questioning contemporary views of the times. In the first stanza, she goes on to say that there is a certain beauty that is on the border of brilliance and despair. I believe that has something to do with the way beauty has traditionally been seen. Particularly, many try to envision the western concepts that are commonly associated with beauty. In this poem, however, she speaks about a different type of beauty. One that does not fall under the same accepted standards. Those who see it for the first time are wary of the looks, but there an alluring aura around it.

As we stare longer, we begin to accept this other standard. Conformists on the other hand tell us to heed their warnings. They say that what we see is a mere illusion. They believe that we have become disenfranchised. The more we believe in our own idea, the further from their reality we get. Eventually, we fall into a sort of slipstream. In a sense, we liberate ourselves from traditional levels of thinking. Once we find our own truth, we pursue it harder, faster. Eventually it comes to a point were we no longer look back at the ideas that we were taught to accept. Instead we get caught up in our own realm; a realm where we set the rules and create our own reality.