The Synchronicity of Poetic Humor

About this poem

Our innate desire for, and love of truth, whether made consciously or unconsciously, lies at the root of dreams, ‘the corrective residence’ of humanity. This tanka poem honors and pays tribute to the life of Serbian-American surrealist poet laureate, Charles Simic (1938-2023), as well as to the observed symbiotic relationship of poetry and dreaming. Charles Simic was a poet, and Charles Simic was a dreamer. It is Simic’s dream and Simic’s poetry that coincidentally connect me, also as a poet and a dreamer, by the interesting phenomenon of synchronicity, to the wisdom of the inner world of dreams in all its diverse forms of manifestation. This statement duly requires explanation. What some people call coincidence, the notable Swiss psychiatrist and analytical psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), would likely call synchronicity, the artful simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related, but which have no discernible causal connection. This appears to be exactly the case in the matter at hand concerning an online poem composed by me on January 16, 2023, bearing the title that “Life is of Spirit “ with a commentary tag, “About this Poem,” informing readers, by way of “Postscript” commentary, of a dream I had at 3 o’clock in the morning, occurring three days after initial composition of my January 16, 2023 poem in which the latent dream content ‘suggested’ my reading of 1 Peter 1:8-9, and Matthew 27:32-56, relating to the historical crucifixion of Jesus. All of this took place prior to my discovery of an AOL ‘message’ on my smartphone, appearing on January 20, 2023, by happenstance or by ploy of synchronicity, in the form of a ‘Poetry Prompt’ from “Poets & Writers” addressing the nature of the creative process, and citing as an example of this, the American poet laureate, Charles Simic’s integration of humor with tragedy in his poem, “The Voice at 3 A. M.” In this work, Simic depicts a ‘summoning’ of the poet to create an artful surrealistic composition. The inner voice heard and registered in the wee hours of the morning by two artists, separated by time and space, is a classical depiction and portrayal of something more than coincidence at work. In retrospect, it would appear that the two seemingly separate instances cited concerning a 3 A.M. ‘summoning’ depict and confirm the irony and play of synchronicity ever at work and universally occurring; seen or unseen, known or unknown; and intervening in human life with a melancholic sense of wit and humor that is ever so punctiliously timeless. more »