The Quest for Meaning in Poetry with Charles Upton

May 19, 2025

Charles Upton, a seasoned poet and author from the traditionalist school of spirituality, reflects on his rich poetic journey and insights. He discusses the three main functions of poetry: meaning, sound, and imagery, while lamenting its decline in modern times. Upton critiques superficiality in contemporary works, urging for artistic integrity and emotional authenticity. He explores nostalgia, the significance of childhood memories in poetry, and the timeless influence of classic poets, revealing poetry's transformational power in navigating life's complexities.

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ANECDOTE

Poetry's Deadly Burden

Charles Upton recounts his mentor Lou Welch's tragic end as an alcoholic suicide associated with the pressures of being a poet.
He chose to leave poetry to save his life and avoid the fate of poets dying young.

INSIGHT

Meaning's Fall in Poetry

Meaning in poetry precipitously declined after the 1960s, leaving many poems void of deep significance.
Poets risk going "into debt" to existence itself if they create interesting words without authentic meaning.

ADVICE

Seek Your True Meaning

Identify what truly matters most to you, what you'd fight or die for, to find meaningful poetic inspiration.
If you don't know your meaning, hunger for it and seek where your life feels empty and unresolved.

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Metaphysics

Aristotle

Aristotle's Metaphysics is a collection of fourteen books exploring fundamental questions about reality, substance, change, and causality. It delves into the nature of being, exploring concepts like potentiality and actuality, substance and accident, and the relationship between form and matter. This work significantly influenced Western philosophy, shaping metaphysical discussions for centuries. Its complex arguments and profound insights continue to be studied and debated by scholars today, offering a rich understanding of Aristotle's philosophical system.

Sporting Life

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Robert Coles

Four quartets

T. S. Eliot

Four Quartets is a cycle of four poems by T.S. Eliot, each titled with a place name: 'Burnt Norton,' 'East Coker,' 'The Dry Salvages,' and 'Little Gidding.' The poems are meditations on time, redemption, and eternity, blending Eliot's Anglo-Catholicism with mystical, philosophical, and poetic elements from various traditions. Each quartet has five sections and explores themes such as the conflict between individual mortality and the endless span of human existence, the nature of spirituality, and the relationship between the present and the past. The work is considered Eliot's masterpiece and his clearest exposition of his Christian beliefs[2][4][5].

Vectors of the Counter-Initiation

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Upton

The Changing Light at Sandover

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James Merrill

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Sir Michael Howard

The Alien Disclosure Deception

Charles Upton

The Course and Destiny of Inverted Spirituality

Charles Upton

The Way Forward for Perennialism After the Antinomianism of Fritjof Schuon

Charles Upton

Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age

Charles Upton

My Birth Dress

Jenny Upton

The Blood

Jenny Upton

Mystical Meanings in Traditional Folk Songs and Spirituals

Charles Upton

The Metaphysics of Social Engineering

Charles Upton

Time raid

Charles Upton

Knowings in the Arts of metaphysics, cosmology, and the spiritual path

Charles Upton

Hammering hot iron

a spiritual critique of bly's iron john

Charles Upton

The System of Antichrist

Truth & Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age

Charles Upton

The science of the greater Jihad

Charles Upton

Panic grass

Charles Upton

Fern Hill

Dylan Thomas

The Quest for Meaning in Poetry with Charles Upton

Charles Upton’s first books of poetry were published in 1968 and 1969 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Light Books in San Francisco. He was then considered the youngest member of the “beat generation” as he was still in high school. He has subsequently written many books associated with the traditionalist school of spirituality including What Poets Used to Know, The Science of the Greater Jihad, Folk Metaphysics, Alien Disclosure Deception: The Metaphysics of Social Engineering, Day and Night on the Sufi Path, Dugin Against Dugin: A Traditionalist Critique of the Fourth Political Theory, System of the Antichrist, and Vectors of the Counter-Initiation. His most recent book of poetry is Wars of Love and Other Poems. His website is https://charles-upton.com/

Note: There is a GoFundMe page for Charles Upton who is dealing with colon cancer. See https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-charles-upton-survive-colon-cancer

To download a copy of See, Sing, and Know: The Art of Poetry in Five Lessons by Charles Upton, as referenced in this interview, go to https://newthinkingallowed.com/See.docx

Here Charles Upton reflects on more than a half-century of involvement in the world of poetry. He explains the three main functions of poetry as meaning, sound, and imagery. He laments the downfall that poetry has experienced in recent decades. He reads from some favorite poets as well as from his own work. He also reflects on the sad tendency of poets to die young.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:38 The debt owed by poets
00:13:20 Good and bad poetry
00:28:59 The loss of meaning
00:44:02 The danger of poetry
00:55:13 The sound of poetry
01:05:20 Reading from The Wars of Love
01:30:32 Poetry needs an audience
01:37:24 Let meaning and wisdom find you
01:42:24 Conclusion

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(Recorded on April 9, 2025)

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