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Ralph van Drielen: Poet and Siamese Twin of Enid Petherick


“The Artist as Problem, or What’s Wrong with Society?”

All children are creative, but it is a sliding scale. Let’s assume that ten percent of adult humans are effectively creative. We won’t define creativity beyond saying that it is a self-justifying force responsible for all the human-made beauty in this world – and for some things that are challenging but hard to define as beauty. Creative people have certain attributes:

a)  the stability of chaos
b) a sure knowledge that what they do is good
c)  a value for money but an unwillingness to pay the loss of time which is      the cost of money
d) an irritation of feeling unappreciated by the other 90 percent of humans
e) a large measure of personal freedom for which they willingly pay

And what of that ninety percent? It isn’t that they are non-creative, rather that they maintain and govern societies that are generally stable and predictable and relatively efficient. Let’s call them "governor people". They assure that food is always in stores and clothes can be purchased. Governor people have different attributes:

a) the stability of routine
b) a belief in that what they do is good
c) a value for money that does not recognize its cost – or its value
d) an irritation at feeling jealous because they aren’t creative
e) free and content with society’s bounds but threatened whenever they     encounter the instability built into real personal freedom

To illustrate the differences: A world run by creative people might have us all chasing rabbits for food down intricately beautiful streets. But a world of governors will never produce a Taj Mahal or a Van Gogh painting.

In a better world these two worlds would compliment each other and we would have a well-run society that appreciated and encouraged beauty – and that would be bathing in beauty because the governors would recognize creative people as necessary and desirable and would ensure a minimum level of support so no one would be chasing rabbits through the streets.

Ralph van Drielen

“Vibrations (2)”

I stand alone atop a solitary
Peak; remote. Stark ranges recede
Like frozen waves. My listening ears seek
Your voice – but hear only wind plucking treed
Slopes. I click a radio – and seed
These mountains with music! Rhythms abound! –
Bursting form this box like a freed
Genie! From whence come these vibrant sounds?
They are here – here – but unheard, unfound
Without this radio. Surging out of
Silence, they confound my thoughts. Why here?
Why these waves to which I am deaf?
Why beats this music so starkly clear?
What other sounds profound can I not hear?

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