holding it up to the light

Before you read any further, may I ask you to read THIS? While you are there, listen to it, too.

Did you like it? 

It's what I want to write about today, on the first day of April, National Poetry Month. Now, I am by no means an authority on poetry, and these thoughts are very personal to me. They come from my love for it, not from my knowledge, which is novice at best. Another poet or lover of poems, or scholar of poetry may have a completely different view. So be it. These musings are important to me, and solely my own.

So often, almost always actually, when I am speaking with someone other than a poet about poetry, the same thing comes up right away, "I don't understand poetry. It's pretty and all, but it seems pointless to read it if I can't even understand what the writer is trying to say."

I can understand that sentiment, I really can. But the thing is...it doesn't matter as much what the poet is trying  to say any more than it matters which recipe the cook uses to make the soup. If it tastes good, if it makes you feel satisfied and nourished...that's all that matters. Maybe that is not the best analogy, because of course it MATTERS, but I think you can get what I'm trying to say: a poem is a wish to connect with others, on a deep level that we may not ever understand, about inward things. Things that have no words to stand up for them or bring them to light...things that can't be named or held in your hands. And a poet uses images to evoke those feelings in us. A good poem has clear images, concrete images, even if it does not have a clear narrative story for us to follow along with. If you read or hear a poem and you come out the other end having your senses engaged by clear images...it is the feelings that those images evoke in YOU personally that make poetry what it is. It's an individual experience, as well as a universal experience, and it has been the soul food for humans since long before any other form of literature. Poetry feeds us. And from the looks of sales of poems in this country, we must be getting pretty near starving. (That is a topic for another day)

Poetry is also a way to celebrate the intricacies of the world: the beautiful and the ugly, the joyful and the sorrowful. Poets observe the world around them closely and reveal the every day particulars in ways that may startle us, or soothe us. In ways we may have never seen or considered before. Poetry makes us pay closer attention and feel more fully alive. Metaphor and simile, meter, cadence, and all of the tools of craft are used by the poet to make us feel something. Perhaps to make us question something, or look closer at ourselves and the world around us. It asks of us to take a moment of stillness and to allow for wonder. 

Do we need to understand something in order to feel it? In order to fully experience it? I don't believe so. But there is a comfort in poetry when nothing else seems to bring clarity. Maybe it is just taking the time to breathe and feel. To really pay attention. 

Reading a poem can be like a deep breath in and a long, soft exhale out. The images of outward things that form in me become symbols and road maps to the inward things I so often have trouble expressing or even beginning to understand. But somehow, when I read a good poem at the right time, I am mysteriously renewed. Changed.

If you are not already a reader of poems I'd like to challenge you to give it a try. And don't try to decipher all those words and lines and stanzas. Read it quietly to yourself, and then read it aloud. Poems need to be read aloud. Read it a couple of times and put it away to read again in a few days. Let the images in the poem form in your mind and let your body feel them and smell them, taste them and hear them. And let it be just that. Sometimes it takes a while to find a poet that really stirs the feelings in us. I suggest starting with Billy Collins if you appreciate a humourous, yet profound approach to life; Mary Oliver if you look to the natural world for illumination and comfort; or Jane Kenyon if you tend to lean towards the spiritual side of things. There are so many wonderful poets to explore, and these are just three that top my own list. You can Google  their names and find some of their work on-line. For a greater variety, you can also subscribe to Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac for a daily poem in your inbox, or to the daily poem email from Poets.org, which also has wonderful resources on discovering poetry in general. Garrison Keillor also has a wonderful anthology of poems that is a perfect place to start exploring different poets.

If you do take the time to discover poetry, I would like to know about your experience. As someone who counts on poems as much as I count on air at times, it saddens me that we as a culture do not give poets a place of importance on our night stands or bookshelves, or in our daily lives, like we used to. It also makes me happy to share what I love about it with others and to hear about how they fall in love with it, too.

Comments

[Stephanie]

Hey darlin~ I love poetry, and your poetry in particular. I leave the writing of it to those who do it well. My poetry can be found in my kitchen or in my camera. There's so many ways to express those intricacies of the world- thanks for showing us your facet of life...
xo-steph