Does Poetry Matter?
Written by MVWG Member Joanne Shird
Poetry, as an art form, predates written text, is probably the oldest form of expressive art, and held a prominent place in ancient societies. I would say it does not hold a prominent place in modern society, that few people revere poetry, own books of poetry or spend time reading poetry. Unlike poetry, I would say that music is a central part of people’s lives. However, music and poetry are not that different, perhaps music strikes elevated chords more pervasively and strums rhythm more persistently but poetry is music as well. Poetry can excite the senses, and as with music one can ride its vibes and break out on the other side.
Children toy with and are often dazzled by rhymes and the play of words. Children love rhyme and are schooled early on in nursery rhymes. Some tightly attuned kids learn the beauty of words at a very young age. One day as I was holding my then 2 ½ year old granddaughter, each of us ‘reading’ our own book, she took my book, which she often did, traced her fingers along the symbols mumbling pretend words. She looked up at me and said, ‘Nonnie, I love words.’ My heart soared. Somehow this young child had grasped the utter depth and beauty of not only the spoken word, which she had mastered, but also the written word which was still a mystery to her.
“In the beginning was the word…”
How do words live? Do they come after the fact of their ‘thing’; are they birthed into being simultaneously with their ‘named’; do they in some way, pre-exist their ‘thing’; are the words for a thing part and parcel of that thing itself, diffusely embedded, awaiting the moment their spiritual components will coalesce, be drawn together from among all other embedded possibilities, to sing forth that which they speak?
What is poetry?
Poetry elucidates the core of things, emphasizes the essential, assembles the missing, captures the invisible, encapsulates ‘being’ and moves it from the page into the mind. Poetry is words jacked to their highest stake, containing unmined riches, whose cutting-edge facets can slice the mundane into a multitude of brilliant fragments. Surely poetry is not needed to exist, but maybe poetry is like a well-seasoned dish, exciting the palette in ways simple bread and water might not.
I read Rainier Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours, Love Poems to God,( translated by A. Barrows and J. Macy) and I am no longer who I am, but more, much, much more. Words are important…a string of words, if they stood alone, might huff and puff a bit, but would have little strength to move. When precisely placed, as in a poem, words can speak the unspeakable. Words seem to have life, they can hitch or halt a word before or after, can move into and away from one another like an old lava lamp, not in a technical way but in the way of poetics, swollen with their past and future. Words aligned just so, birth in the reader a knowing so deep it expands their being beyond the limits of themselves into the blazing realm of truth.
Following is the first Rilke poem I ever read, (Book of Hours) I cannot truly express how deeply it moved me and although I have reread it countless times, it moves me still.
Then Bends Down the Hour and Strikes Me
The hour is striking so close above me,
so clear and sharp,
that all my senses ring with it.
I feel it now: there’s a power in me
to grasp and give shape to my world.
I know that nothing has ever been real
without me beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me, to meet and be met.
(I,I)
Following are two poems of mine birthed by the above.
I Am Needed
I am not just a mere human
in this creation,
I am needed here, at my time,
to make real my surround.
All things need me,
as I need all things,
the interweave of God’s world
is intricate, often minute,
and my place is not unessential.
Without me, the things beholden
would falter and fade,
as I would falter and fade
without God’s touch.
10/29/15
I Am Needed (II)
Because I am
all else becomes real
and though I am but a speck
in all eternity,
I am needed here
in my time
and all things
that come after my being
are dependent upon this,
my mere moment.
8/8/16
Words are powerful. They can elicit love, hate, compassion, joy, sadness, sympathy,
serenity, stress and a whole host of other feelings. Poetry, ‘a literary work in which
special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas’, can be especially
powerful.
Yes, poetry matters.
Joanne has been writing in one form or another since she was a child. She finds words both powerful and primary to life. In addition, the out-of-doors has always been the place she most desires to be and as a child she spent hours in the small woods behind our house. Joanne loves to search for the essential meaning of each thing, be it a tree, a rock, a structure or a relationship and then she loves plumbing my depths to find the words or images to describe that essence. I express this primarily through my writing and my weaving, but cooking and baking are expressions, as well. Joanne lives on a 207 acre farm in rural La Farge, with lots of woods, a 2 acre vineyard, and a very large garden, surrounded by incredible beauty.