Attention Equals Beauty Equals Love Equals Attention

It's been a month, somehow, since I arrived in Seattle to write and study poetry for a week. It was a full, life-giving week that offered many gifts. After reflecting on my time there I think I can boil it all down to one word;

attention.

If I die today, I'd be happy with a gravestone that reads 'pay attention'.

Or maybe "small is beautiful". But you'd have to be paying attention to notice that.

I've been thinking about what it means to "pay attention" for years.

Attention as currency.

Attention that costs.

The Attention Economy.

To pay attention, something must be given. Space must be made. Life must be altered. The volume turned town. Plans cancelled. Days set aside. Ears pricked and eyes peeled for What Might Happen Next.

I first learned this a decade ago at another Glen Workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Songwriters Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist of Over The Rhine taught me that the key to good songwriting is to carry a butterfly net. There are good things fluttering about all the time. Our job is to pay attention, then to capture what we encounter and share it with the waiting world.

Attention is the core of art. The starting pose. The creative posture. Perhaps, the whole deal.

At this Glen Workshop in Seattle, I learned something new about attention. Attention makes things beautiful. Attention makes us fall in love.

My Seattle week looked like this. Every morning I would gather with a cohort of a dozen or so poets and each of us would read our piece, then receive feedback. We would respond to each other's work by answering specific questions.

What are the sources of energy?

What feels meaningful, evocative, interesting, or exciting?

What patterns do you notice?

To answer these, I had to pay close attention to each poem and my experience with it. As I did, each poem became better. More beautiful.

It almost didn't matter if I thought the poems were 'good' or not the first time I read them.

The more I read each poem, the better it became.

The more I heard a poem filtered through the experience of others in the room, the more I fell in love with it.

Now, it would be a stretch to say that every work of art created deserves to be visited again and again, but I've come to believe that truly "great" works are made great in time by our repeated engagement with them.

This is why any new work has an uphill battle to appreciation.

I also believe this is why Star Wars is seen as a great film. But that's for another post (let's just say I haven't seen any Star Wars many times).

This is why Weezer's Blue Album is perhaps the greatest album ever made. Of course it isn't. But also, for many of us, it kind of is because we've listened to it hundreds of times.

Attention makes things beautiful.

This is a little backwards I know. We might think we would pay attention because the thing is beautiful in the first place, but I think this works on a loop. It's the same with love.

Attention is at the core of love.

Think of the things you love. Do you spend time with them because you love them, or do you love them because you spend time with them?

My wife and I have, mostly, kept a date night every week since high school. Each week we offer each other our attention. We try and go out or at least do something special at home. Most times this takes sacrifice and planning. We pay each other our attention. That's the only romance advice I have to give, and the only reason we'll celebrate 25 years or marriage next winter (!)

The Glen Workshop in Seattle made me fall in love with poetry all over again.

Poetry is crucial because it's the ultimate attention device.

A poem demands slowed pace. Focus. Often, a moment is being suspended before us to examine. Time is stretched still.

A poem asks us to pay attention to something. And we know where that leads.

I learned I need more poetry. To read it and to write it.

Poetry is an act of defiance against speed. Against carelessness. Against despair.

I'm trying to be more careful about how I spend my attention.

I hope to invest it in beauty and love.

Any good poets I should be reading?

In dumb hope,

(Dave) Von Bieker
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