In May of 1944, the poet Anna Akhmatova gave a reading at the Polytechnic Museum, the largest auditorium in Moscow. It was her first appearance in the city since World War II, and the room was packed. The poems she read had rallied Russians throughout the war, and her voice had broadcast through the streets of Leningrad to steel the city to the approaching German Army. When she finally closed her books, she received such thunderous applause that Joseph Stalin asked who'd organized the ovation. The man knew power when he saw it.
If you grew up in America, it might surprise you to learn that a poet has ever had that sort of impact. Poetry here is best known for the simple, sentimental verses found in Hallmark cards and the lyrics of pop music. The word "poet" probably calls to mind some weirdo in a beret. And poetry's power to influence American politics is, at best, a fizzle--if you heard anything about the anti-Bush anthology Poets Against the War, then you listen to a lot of NPR. The truth is most Americans have lost touch with the best of what poetry is: a record of some of civilization's greatest writers--and wisest people--taking on the questions and emotions that define us.
Certainly, the world has changed a lot since Akhmatova. Time once devoted to reading books now goes to TV, movies, and the Internet. When people do read, most prefer to pick up something they can relax with like John Patterson or Augusten Burroughs. But one only needs to look down the aisles of inspirational books at Barnes and Noble to know that the search for meaning that has always driven the great poems still resonates. Classic themes like love, despair, life, death, and hope still infatuate us. Heck, you can find them all in one episode of "Grey's Anatomy." Yet the poems of faith John Milton wrote after he'd gone completely blind, the atheist Percy Bysshe Shelley's passionate explorations of a godless world, and Sylvia Plath's struggle just to hold her world together all go under-appreciated and under-read.
So why aren't we reading poetry? Here are some reasons I often hear that will probably sound familiar. Here, too, are some reasons to reconsider.
Reason 1: I've never understood it.
Poetry can be difficult. Learning to read Shakespeare is difficult, and I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone take on T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" without some guidance. But most poets are far more accessible than Eliot or Shakespeare. Also, it's important to note that your expectations for a poem should be different from your expectations for, say, a newspaper or a novel. A poem often has multiple layers of meaning that will unfold over a few readings--and it's important to give a poem that opportunity. It's a good idea to read a poem more than once in a sitting or go back and reread it over the course of a few weeks or even a lifetime. Remember that the process of exploring a great poem should be part of the reward. As Walt Whitman asked in "Song of Myself":
"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? Have you reckon'd the Earth much?
Have you practic'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?"
Reason 2: I can't get past the whole rhyming thing.
Rhyming verse can fall a little hard on the modern ear, which is why most contemporary poems are written in "free verse" with no set meter or rhyme scheme. Rhymes are a part of poetry's music: the rhythms and sounds of words from which a poet draws power. Like a great soloist or orator, a poet with a good ear can infuse what he's saying with emotion and immediacy. If you're reading a poem with end rhymes and they're bothering you, ignore the line breaks and try reading the poem as if it's prose.
Reason 3: Poetry is for angst-ridden teens, hopeless romantics and the aforementioned weirdos in berets.
Sure, you run into a few aspiring poets at your local coffee shop that fit this bill, but I guarantee you couldn't pick a practicing poet off the street. We're surprisingly normal. Just like you, we're obsessed with things like fantasy football and I Love New York 2. I was on track to be a doctor before I stumbled on poetry (yes, my parents were real happy about that one). That's not to say that your experience with poetry will be as all-consuming as mine, but for all that poetry has given me, I have no doubt that it has something to give you.
So how should you begin? I'd recommend you start with an anthology. You can't go wrong with the Norton Anthology of Poetry, which covers everything from medieval English verse to Bob Dylan. When you find a poet you like, buy a book of his or her work. Volumes of poetry aren't as daunting as the word "volume" implies. In fact, they're relatively small. And you can read through most poems in a fraction of the time it takes to finish a Sudoku. You should also check here each week, where I'll be posting a great poem as a blog. Think of it as a weekly cultural aperitif.
No Finely Crafted Chapters
Along
The long
Back roads
Of natures wisdom
i found the seeds of your autobiography
Lying gently under the blossoms of the mimosa trees
i had never intended to make a study yet silence got the best of me
For there were no finely crafted chapters
Only a myriad of loves opportunities
To help untame our authenticity
Today you are not between
The forceps and the stone
And i am nameless in
The comfort of
Never being
Alone
silent lotus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a power in the best poetry that shines through the supposed "difficulty." Shakespeare blew me away at 16. I didn't understand it all, but I knew how amazing it was.
In no other skilled human endeavor--mathematics, music, painting, baseball, dance--do we expect people with no background or practice to immediately be able to participate fully. I do not understand why idiots expect it of poetry, and I am not forgiving of the idiots who do expect that. Do not frigging APOLOGIZE for the "difficulty," as though it were poetry's fault for requiring a little insight and intelligence. Have some frigging self-respect.
2) Defense of "rhyming" seems limpwristed. Equates rhyming with form, and implies that modern poets are much more sophisticated for having abandoned it. For 80 years now contemporary poets have turned away from form, music, and rhyme, and during that period readership has declined catastrophically. There is a direct connection. People want music and story, and contemporary poetry offers neither.
3) Most modern readers have turned away from poetry because most contemporary poetry sucks bigtime. It is frequently completely self-involved, usually cryptic and snotty, and overwhelmly dull and tedious. A related reason is that almost nobody is teaching how to truly get into and enjoy the great poems of the past.
Poetry is delight. It is a level of delight you cannot attain unless you take the trouble to develop a few skills, but that is true of all enyoyment whatsoever. The sort of amusement which appeals to the lowest common denominator steadily deteriorates in value. Waltzing is tremendously enjoyable, but one must learn how.
Correct though that great poetry consists of great minds and beings (and talents) considering the burning questions.
Reading poetry gives us the words and the meaning we can apply to our own experinces so we can either enjoy more things in our lifes or solve problems.
Poetry is one way of learning from others mistakes or adventures in life. Thats what I tell my kids anyway to get them to read it.
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No Finely Crafted Chapters
Along
The long
Back roads
Of natures wisdom
i found the seeds of your autobiography
Lying gently under the blossoms of the mimosa trees
i had never intended to make a study yet silence got the best of me
For there were no finely crafted chapters
Only a myriad of loves opportunities
To help untame our authenticity
Today you are not between
The forceps and the stone
And i am nameless in
The comfort of
Never being
Alone
silent lotus
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
©from the archive Listening To Love
www.silentlotus.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
George's Lament
Time rushes it's End, yet Dawn's not unfurled
God in his Place and all reich with the World.
I've tried, how I've tried, with lies and in scorn,
To heed His whisper: "Corrupt and suborn,
Reshape all this land as feudal in mold,
And make highly noble the Corporate Fold."
The tools I was given were ancient, yet bold,
The same long employed by barons of old:
Terror and Fear, sown Division and Shame,
All proved fabulous used in my name.
That I mastered them well I offer as proof
That Wrong is now Right, and Lying is Truth.
The Past I've turned clay, and molded to shape
A tale of History that's but its rape.
And all the Dead lying in wait of Charon
Died not in vain but for cause of my own
As good sheeple should. For God has decreed
Me the Decider, they, fuel for my leede.
So why are my minions all falling away,
Treacherous scum, in confused disarray?
And over those things so small and pic'yune
It boggles the mind: mere Torture's the tune
They're playing on strings, while sobbing in pain
Like delicate schoolgirls caught in the rain!
It sure would be funny if not for the gall:
They're "terrists", stupid, not human at all!
And, as for the Rights in that faded old Bill?
They only apply if there's no one to kill.
So, save all your 'plaints and your quaintness of Law,
God says I am Master. Regard me with awe.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas
When I Heard the Learned Astronomer
Walt Whitman
Patterns
Amy Lowell
One Acquainted With the Night
Robert Frost
Dover Beach
Mattew Arnold
When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be
John Keats
Some women poets you may never have read that are excellent: Anne Sexton and Mary Oliver.
Times have changed,
And we've often rewound the clock,
Since the Puritans got a shock,
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today,
Any shock they should try to stem,
'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes
When grandmama whose age is eighty
In night clubs is getting matey with gigolo's,
Anything Goes.
When mothers pack and leave poor father
Because they decide they'd rather be tennis pros,
Anything Goes.
If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like
Or me undressed you like,
Why, nobody will oppose!
When every night,
The set that's smart
Is intruding in nudist parties in studios,
Anything Goes.
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
When most guys today
That women prize today
Are just silly gigolos
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes
If saying your prayers you like,
If green pears you like
If old chairs you like,
If back stairs you like,
If love affairs you like
With young bears you like,
Why nobody will oppose!
And though I'm not a great romancer
I know that I'm bound to answer
When you propose,
Anything goes...
Anything goes!
Cole Porter
He siad it was written on a restaurant restroom's wall on the Jersey turnpike
Don't throw cigarette butts in our urinals
we don't piss in your ashtrays.
is "sound bites, spin, manipulation, selling fake images, lies, corruption" etc.
Americans enjoy being NASTY & DISGUSTING.
When you refuse to accept poetry and TRUTH as part of life, you end up with GWBush who wants to destroy America and Americans for the sake of greed.
William Shakespeare
----
Th'expence of Spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjurd, murdrous, blouddy full of blame,
Savage, extreame, rude, cruell, not to trust,
Injoy'd no sooner but dispised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swollowed bayt,
On purpose layd to make the taker mad.
Made In pursut and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreame,
A blisse in proofe and provd and very wo,
Before a joy proposd behind a dreame,
All this the world well knowes yet none knowes well,
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.