David Whyte, on Patrick Kavanagh’s wonderful poem “The Self-Slaved”:

It’s one of the truisms of postmodern therapeutic language that you’re supposed to be constantly exposing yourself, but Kavanagh says there’s a kind of false self you can expose. You can be saying how you had that trauma, this trauma, how you need that, and all the time you’re speaking from a kind of contingent identity. And there’s another more radical identity that’s more often more silent, which is inimicable to therapy, in a way, and is more radical, wilder, lives according to a more “outlaw” view of the universe, of creation. And Kavanagh says, to be constantly describing yourself and to think you know who you are and to be constantly explaining to others who you are, is a gospel of despair. That to BE yourself and to put that self into conversation with others, and to overhear yourself saying things you didn’t know you knew — this is more like the truth, this is more like an identity, this is more like the poetic imagination.

Very much enjoying this one, which as far as I can tell is exclusively an audiobook. I “borrowed” it from our local library on Hoopla, but it’s also available on Libby.