Owl Eyes

"Poetry is the kind of thing you have to see from the corner of your eye," said the poet William Stafford. "You can be too well prepared for poetry. A conscientious interest in it is worse than no interest at all... It's like a very faint star. If you look straight at it you can't see it, but if you look a little to one side it is there."


I came across part of this quote on the Free Will Astrology blog. It reminded me of a practice I learned about this summer called Owl Eyes. It's an awareness game from the Wilderness Awareness School that builds on the experiences of naturalists and indigenous peoples from the world over. Using Owl Eyes means expanding your vision, utilizing your peripherals broadening your view rather than having a sharp focus. It's contrasted with Eagle Eyes or predatory vision.


You know that tingling feeling when you know someone is watching you? That's the Eagle Eyes. Owl Eyes are a softer kind of vision. Rather than needle-like focus on any one object, you're absorbing the bigger picture.


I'm drawing this analogy from Stafford's quote because in many respects poetry is like that. If you get too caught up in details you can miss the meaning. At the same time, I challenge this quote. As a literary critic, to not take a conscientious look at a text and truly interact with it is tantamount to ignoring it.


Let me return for a moment to the outdoors. Another game I've learned through students of the WAS is the art of Fox Walking. To Fox Walk is to move silently. Instead of each step sliding over the ground (imagine one of those scenes from a Charlie Brown Christmas Special where everyone is dancing), each movement is precisely up and down. Each step is controlled and balanced so that you can stop at any time. You place your foot with care, ghosting into crinkly leaves and crackly twigs without a sound. You center your weight over each foot before moving the next.


Now imagine trying to practice this Fox Walking while looking at the world with Owl Eyes. It's hard to do. If you're focused on broadening your vision, you can't pay as close attention to where you're stepping. And you focus on each step you take, it's difficult to keep a broader awareness of what you're seeing around you. It takes a lot of practice to do these at the same time, so lacking that, what is a budding naturalist to do?


Divide, conquer and imitate the animals.


Every few steps stop, just for a second, and look around. Open your ears and listen. Smell and taste the air. Feel your entire physical being with all your senses.


The same goes with poetry. If all you do is look slant at the words on the page, you miss the stories that aren't hiding. If you only take things at face value, you miss the nuance of metaphor. Feel the poem. What kind of visceral, gut reaction does it invoke?


Learning to look at something out of the corner of your eye is learning to pay a new kind of attention. To direct your focus without actually having to focus directly.