Why You Should Read Poetry...Yes, Poetry

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.

Comments

[anotherbozo]

Ars Poetica
Archibald MacLeish


------------------------------------------------------------------------

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown--

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind--

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea--

A poem should not mean
But be.

[hontonoshijin]

Damn fine all right. How about And You, Andrew Marvell?

[N678]

The Tyger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake

[anotherbozo]

HuffPost fans might enjoy, if that's the right word, "The Bush Administration" by Frederick Seidel, from his latest, Ooga-Booga. So many great poems that hit you between the eyes, too: Yeats' "Second Coming," with only the slightest bit of explication advisable. "Leda and the Swan." "Ozymandias" and "Ode on a Grecian Urn." They're familiar, but how many people remember them line-for-line? Finally, Keats' "To Autumn" --seasonal, yes? Keep up the good work.

[RobinLandseadel]

Yeats' "Second Coming" is set to some rather fine music in Joni Mitchell's "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" from her album "Night Ride Home."

[hontonoshijin]

Yes, Blake, Keats. So many! Incidentally, I know Second Coming, Sailing to Byzantium, and quite a few other Yeats poems by heart. Most of Ozymandias. Quite a lot of Frost, Wilbur, Dickinson, et aliae. My principle is that unless you know a poem by heart you do not truly have it. Other people have it and you can visit, and that is wonderful, but it is not yours.

[CrazyJane]

Read Jack Spicer. You can find his books if you try.

[Zeje]

Where? I"ve been trying to find Jack Spicer for awhile now.

[VivaldiPickpocket]

A LUMP OF
SOMETHING

Her hair
damp
& matted

like a lump
of something

dragged
dripping

upon the beach
by a child

she would love
to have someday

or so she
once remarked
to me

long ago

but for now
seeming content

to settle for
the pain

&
pull of
her comb.

[VivaldiPickpocket]

THE SHEER WEIGHT OF EMPTINESS

Not by any name
i know this fog

but by a feeling
worn as lovers

who cling too long
to the sound of

the tide calling
for voices lost

inside this
shroud i am

sprawled upon
an igneous altar

a mollusk ready
to be opened by

gulls or gods or
goodness only

knows a shell
cracked agnostic

& exposing
an ache

the size of
buddha's soul

& a hole
made solid

as soon as the sun
breaks through.

[cktirumalai]

William Carlos Williams was both a doctor and a poet. The President of a Poetry Society once diffidently asked him if he would come read his poems for a lowly fee of, perhaps, ten dollars. Williams replied that he would gladly do so and added, "Hell, I have delivered babies for a lot less."
American readers could begin with the memorable poems of Robert Frost or the cerebral and yet very musical and lyrical poems of Wallace Stevens, and then branch out into their own preferences, being sure to read some poems being written now, for a well that is not constantly renewed goes dry.

[hontonoshijin]

Stevens. What a fine poet. And formal, too, incidentally. Do you know Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu?

[NoMercy]

Although Plato is known for philosophy, it is to drama that we must look to find the model for his dialogues.

Thus the father of philosophy demonstrates that the discussion of meaning comes directly from art. "Artful" means seductive; it is teaching and learning without effort. The art is itself form and content, the mind itself demonstrated, made clear.

Drama is poetry, the source of literature. The oldest writings are of two types, business accounts and poetry. Keeping account of things, and thinking about the meaning of things. Prose and dialectic are merely disguised songs, artful and businesslike presentations of the same topics that occupied the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Job.

So the source of philosophy is the poets, except that poets make it memorable with rhythm and music in their words.

[Inertia]

Won gut thing aboot computers--they transmit poetry.

[Blutus]

If you are allowing
Helen Vendler
to be your poetry
guide,

you are being ill-served.

Especially if you need her
to tell you what and why
about O'Hara is meaningful.

O'Hara, of all poets,
doesn't need any help from
Helen Vendler, the gate-keeper.

[Nommo]

True enough. There is enough to choose from that no gate keepers are necessary.

[nypoet22]

Calling them "gate-keepers" is such a disservice to what anthologists and critics do. Yes, someone who has read in depth and knows all the conventions already has little use for someone to tell them what something "ought" to mean, but there needs to be some form of scaffolding for the uninitiated. In that respect I think Vendler does as good a job as anyone else of exposing newcomers to some directions they might go in exploring the poetic world.

[nypoet22]

I won't repeat myself because i already responded to nommo, but i will say one thing: people who aren't educated on the topic would indeed realize that o'hara's work is great without anyone else to tell them so, but they might not yet understand what about it makes it so great. or why it tends to be considered greater than, for example, yours or mine. great critics don't always make great artists, but there's always been a worthwhile place in the art world for educated criticism.

[nypoet22]

Learning seventh grade civics
My student Alex
Asks why we went to Iraq.
I shrug my shoulders,
We thought they had nuclear
Weapons, or might soon.
He asks, "Did they?" No, I say.
"Then why do we stay?"

Terrorists did bomb New York,
They proved that they can.
"The terrorists from Iraq?"
No, Afghanistan;
They are two different places.
"You mean we based this
War on a mistake?" Yes, I say.
"Then why do we stay?"

After Nine-One-One’s events,
We need to prevent
Terrorists from bombing us.
He asks, "Did Iraq bomb us?"
No, but they might. Well,
They did pay to bomb Israel.
"Did we stop that?" No, I say.
"Then why do we stay"?

To capture Saddam Hussein,
End his bloody reign,
Free the people of those lands
To seek their own ends.
Alex asks, "Is Iraq free?
Can they decide their
own destiny?" Yes, I say.
"Then why do we stay?"

Terrorists have gone to war.
"Were they there before we came?"
No, they came later
They plan to follow
Us home and attack us here.
"The war stopped them?" No,
They are coming anyway.
"Then why do we stay?"

Soldiers fighting over there
Can’t protect us here."
Alex, you’re Conservative,
Why change your view?
"The war ended years ago
And we hate Bush too.
If he’s not dumb or crazy
Then why do we stay?"

Maybe for petrol, money,
Political sway,
Religious conviction or
Just to get his way,
But shouldn’t Conservatives
Guard their leader? "No,"
Alex huffs, "he is not my
Leader anymore."

[nypoet22]

in terms of anthologies, i'm a fan of vendler's 'poems-poets-poetry.' it presents not only many different types of poems, but explains what about them makes them meaningful. as for a poem i particularly like, how about frank o'hara's 'my heart'

I'm not going to cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time,
I don't prefer one "strain" to another.
I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,
not just a sleeper, but also the big,
overproduced first-run kind. I want to be
at least as alive as the vulgar. And if
some aficionado of my mess says
"That's not like Frank!", all to the good! I
don't wear brown and grey suits all the time,
do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,
often. I want my feet to be bare,
I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--
you can't plan on the heart, but
the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

[Blutus]

Why don't people read poetry anymore??

Read all these posts and it will give
you a clue.

Kahlil Gibran??? Sweet Jesus!
Crap!

Poetry slams?!?

Destroyed poetry the way MTV destroyed music.

And for the "poets" posting here: for the love of god, keep your day jobs.


Turn off your computer.
Go read everything by Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Wilbur and Les Murray.

Then reconsider.

Baby.

[Nommo]

I think that it had far more to do with the butchering of poetry that goes on in institutions of edu. Uninspired teachers, or overly technical approached that do nothing for appreciation.

If all it took were these things that you mention, then there was not much there to begin with. Certainly you can come up with more than the 3 you mention, tho Elizabeth Bishop is certainly one to read more of, if one has read any at all.

[snideelf]

one man's trash is another man's treasure

[hontonoshijin]

Feel poetry slams relatively harmless as long as one realizes that their primary artistic value is in performance, not in words.

[RogerARTcom]

The CAT,

FETTUCCINE...

MICE and ME

The Cat came in with dinner for us...

A Mouse swinging between his teeth... the tail dragging

I tried to yell... out with the Mouse...

He was just being a Cat... bringing me supper to share

But do you have to eat... the Mouse in the house...

I JUST HAD A BOWL OF FETTUCCINE

He hides the animal chain of life... under the bed... crunching and cracking

LATER... he comes out... licking his Chops...

No fettuccine for me... Thanks...

BUT LET'S SHARE the WATER

[RogerARTcom]

NO SECRETS

Secrets Are the Enemy of...

" DEMOCRACY "

Freedom, Justice and True Love

[hippynanainblingland]

Or as the late Robert Heinlein so aptly put it in "Stranger in a Strange Land," SECRECY BEGETS TYRANNY."