“IN HER LIGHT” Toward a poetics of humility
In his seminal essay on virtue, Emmanuel Levinas observes, “Humility is not to be confused with an equivocal negation of one’s Self, already proud of its virtue, which in reflection, it immediately recognizes in itself.” Here Levinas rightly calls our attention to the self-congratulatory mindset that abounds among the liberally inclined, challenging us to strive for a relationship to virtue that is more just and more true. By gesturing toward a definition of humility that lacks self-consciousness, Levinas calls for a kind of selflessness that offers no immediate reward in and of itself.
Two recent collections of poetry interrogate the startling self-consciousness and Maya C. Popa’s offer a definition of humility that proves as compassionate as it is revolutionary in its politics. For these two gifted poets, a crucial part of a writer’s intelligence is the ability to move beyond their own subject position, returning to it in time with a refreshed awareness. After all, as Paul Ricoeur once noted, it is the moment in which the self is made strange that makes possible humility, empathy, and social justice.
