Out of the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram, Mary R. Bast, Ph.D. 
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised: June 28, 2010 

Poetry & Personality

"Wish I Were Here" -- Style Nine

Some people are so "nice" they tend to merge with others' preferences. Taking a strong position is difficult because they see all sides of an issue and are essentially non-aggressive. They tend toward epic tales (it's hard for them to focus). Their driving force is indolence, in that they're out of touch with their own wishes, a kind of self-forgetting. Even for those readers who are not growing old (or who at least naively believe you're invulnerable to the hazards of aging), you have had moments when you desperately wanted to remember something - a quote, the punch line to a funny joke, the key actors in a favorite movie. Or, more poignantly, you might have been struggling to remember what you were about to do when distracted by a view through the window, or the recollection of a minor task undone, or one of the six interesting books you are reading simultaneously. 

Billy Collins amuses us with this quality in the poem Forgetfulness:

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of...

But the next few lines are not quite so amusing, are they?

...as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones...

These lost moments are evidence of the extreme distractibility of Nines. They're not lazy but rather out of touch with what's important to them. They have been so indoctrinated to merge with others' preferences that they embody a loss of self. In order to stay in that place "where there are no phones," they cannot be present, must not engage passionately with the energy of each emerging moment. 

Al Zolynas captures this quality exactly in Postcard From Home. He plays on the familiar theme of vacationers who so fully enjoy their new and fascinating environs that they write postcards to their dearest friends saying, "Wish you were here." Zolynas turns this into a revelation about self-forgetting, especially with these lines:  

Sitting on the deck, bare feet
on the railing, I watch and listen to
this day...
...Each detail says "This!"
and has always and ever only said "This!"
Wish I were here.

When devoted to others' agendas, a tamping down of one's own wishes creates a locked trunk of feelings, so many Nines experience life as a monotone. Consequently they can be somewhat Bored as depicted by Margaret Atwood:

All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded...

The speaker gave herself over to someone who was clear about what he wanted to have done. She acquiesced. But why? Why wouldn't she say, "I'm bored to death with your wood sawing. I have other things I cherish that I want to do. Saw it yourself!" Taking a strong position is difficult for Nines. They see all sides of an issue and are essentially non-aggressive. They learned to be good children in the illusion that being good would make them loveable. But their focus became too narrow, held no space for errant feelings or thoughts.  

John Updike's Dog's Death is touching because the puppy in his poem works so hard to earn her owners' praise:

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog!
                                                                    Good dog!"

...In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died..

...Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.

The dog's attempt to please is an apt metaphor. Such a high need to be good in order to win others' love is a kind of death. Most Nines are extremely compassionate towards mistreated animals, cannot bear to think of elephants being maimed and left to die, their tusks removed. The powder from elephant tusks is thought to have special powers. Like these elephants, Nines have been robbed of their power, mute instead of voicing their presence, their needs, their wants, their passions.  

Where do deep feelings such as anger go? They're locked up but must seep out, often in a passive-aggressive way. Wendell Berry cautions us about such a quality in A Warning to My Readers:

Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness...
                        ...I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies...

Nonetheless, Nines are overtly sweet-natured people whose inclusiveness provides a safe harbor for others. Their natural humility and grace are often expressed in peaceful acceptance and gratitude for life's simplest pleasures. This Buddha-like quality surrounds us as gently as the scent of sandalwood in Allen Ginsberg's lovely poem, After Yeats: 

Now incense fills the air
and delight follows delight,
quiet supper in the carpet room...
old friends at rest on bright mattresses,
old paintings on the walls, old poetry
thought anew...

Perhaps more than any other Enneagram style, transforming Nines evoke the vision of spiritual awakening. Once aware, once able to engage in life with passion, they can appreciate the presence of any day: "the sky, the air, the light," as sung by Denise Levertov in Variation on a Theme by Rilke:

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me...
...it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Other Poems by Published Poets that Illustrate this Personality

Manners (Elizabeth Bishop)
Fine Adjustments (Michael Hofmann)
Last Walk (Michael Hofmann)
the lesson of the moth (Don Marquis)
Far Country (W.S. Merwin)
Getting Serious (Alice Friman)
Ritual (Susan Mitchell)
The House (Mary Oliver)
A Portrait (Dorothy Parker) 
Old Mama Saturday (Marie Ponsot)
The Return of the Invisible Man (Charles Simic)
Down With Fanatics! (Roger Woddis)
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge (William Wordsworth)
A slumber did my spirit seal (William Wordsworth)
Waking (David Whyte)
A Nine Considers His Curses and Blessings (Al Zolynas)

The Jesus Poems (Mary Bast)        

Poems by Readers

Forgiveness (Robert Caldwell)
Five AM (Jackie Draysey)        
Prisoner (Jackie Draysey)       
Moving On (Jackie Draysey)
Mosaic (Constance Menefee)   
Naming the Animals (Jack Seefeldt)     
The Gentle Art of Letting Go (Sue Pinkerton)
I Am Not Here (Mary Renaud)
Red Lily (Robert Shanklin)