On poetry and refusal

Poetry can be a form of refusal I think as well as openness.  It can be a refusal in its openness, a refusal to shut down, a refusal to let thinking be limited by cultural and genre expectations.  I often write poetry as a form of resistance to getting on with whatever I ought to be getting on with.  Yes, but that’s not what I want to write about.  It is nearly Christmas and there is a lot that we might want to feel open to refusing.  Christmas can be hard, an extended performance of goodwill we might not feel, a celebration when it might be more important to grieve, a time of togetherness when we might not be able to be with the people we love the most.  There is a poem I love by Muriel Rukeyser called “Effort of Speech Between Two People,” which I could love for the title alone, but love for the repetition through the poem of the phrases “I am not happy” and “I will be open.”  It is a poem full of stories, from childhood through adolescence into adulthood and a relationship with someone, “he,” the poet/speaker thinks now never loved her, and there is a “you,” perhaps not the same person, whom the poem addresses, and there is an effort of speech, a wish to be known and to know the other person.  But this isn’t the poem I want to write about.  The poem I want to write about is simply a poem of refusal, even while it is a poem about longing.  In the poem, it is the port longing, and refusing to focus the longing on any particular ship, but I like to read it when I, myself, am full of longing, but instead of looking for a harbour from my longing, can read this poem to stay with that depth of grief.  It makes it easy, because it offers such an insistent refusal, without any emotion, it is pure pattern, and I find it quite funny even while it somehow speaks to my own sorrow.  It is by the American poet Robert Lax.  I recommend reading it out loud.  
 
The port
was longing
 
the port
was longing
 
not for
this ship
not for
that ship
 
not for
this ship
not for
that ship
 
the port
was longing
 
the port
was longing
 
not for
this sea
not for
that sea
 
not for
this sea
not for
that sea
 
the port
was longing
 
the port
was longing
 
not for
this &
not for
that
 
not for
this &
not for
that
 
the port
was longing
 
the port
was longing
 
not for
this &
 
not for
that