Poetry Month

HAPPY POETRY MONTH!

Yes, it was absolutely necessary to write that in all caps. I was planning on posting so many poems in celebration of poetry month however ochem has me occupied this quarter (although rest assured I find time for reading poetry, just not posting it).

What does poetry do for us? How is it being revived in this age? How is it crucial in the shaping and representation of civilizations past and present?

Poetry should be acknowledged as more than just emotional proclamations - it is that surely, but it is more as well. It is a form of art that we turn to, no doubt, in our times of great feeling. Those of us gifted with that voice might try our hands at it; those of us most appreciative of what it conveys feel all the more gifted for finding the sought after, sometimes in a handful of lines.

I actually registered for a writing poetry course this quarter but ended up dropping it as I could not see myself balancing that with three science courses, mostly because I would give my undivided attention to the poetry thus failing the other three. However I have been reading a lot of poetry as of late. I didn't finish the H.D. and Wallace Stevens collections- they were too thick and I found that although there were a few poems here and there that I greatly enjoyed, most of them were only bearable. I am now reading the collected poems of Theodore Roethke and can't put the book down. What a remarkable man he was: I feel a great loss to not have crossed paths with him. But I hold his words in my hands now; beautifully crafted verses. This one made me stop - written in 1939, it seems to perfectly capture the political tension that prevails today:

The winds of hatred blow
Cold, cold across the flesh
And chill the anxious heart;
Intricate phobias grow
From each malignant wish
To spoil collective life.
Now each man stands apart.

We watch opinion drift,
Think of our separate skins.
On well-upholstered bums
The generals cough and shift
Playing with painted pins.
The arbitrators wait;
The newsmen suck their thumbs.
The mind is quick to turn
Away from simple faith
To the cant and fury of
Fools who will never learn;
Reason embraces death,
While out of frightened eyes
Still stares the wish to love. 

Today on my way back from school, a friend of mine asked what makes for a good poem. It is such a difficult question, but truly the answer is simple. What speaks to you with an urgency and elegancy that moves? Poets do not seek poems: poems seek them out in their daily lives. It comes as an inspiration at best, and at times it is produced by worked creativity. I do not state this boldly or assert a standing in the matter. I am neither a poet nor a scholar. But I think as an avid reader I can say this at least. 

But the greater question should be (and one I had the pleasure of exploring last quarter) is originality in poetry exhausted? I stared at volumes of poetry in a bookstore today and thought to myself that it is now near impossible to write something that has not before been expressed, and chances are that it was said better by that other guy from the 18th century if you are just now scrambling to get yourself published. So, what should the young poet of today turn to? Well, whaddaya know, a poem titled "To a Young Poet" has already been written by Mahmoud Darwish who said it best: 

"Don’t believe our outlines, forget them

and begin from your own words.

As if you are the first to write poetry

or the last poet.

If you read our work, let it not be an extension of our airs,

but to correct our errs

in the book of agony.

Don’t ask anyone: Who am I?

You know who your mother is.

As for your father, be your own.

Truth is white, write over it

with a crow’s ink.

Truth is black, write over it

with a mirage’s light.

You know who also said it quite well? R. G. Everson:

"Opening with dynamite blast, 

we grope in underground workings 

to tunnel Labrador granite 

I find no fossil in igneous rock, 

no curious painting on broken walls, 

no lock of hair or mythical token. 

Nothing ever alive precedes man here:

if, "Poetry can only be made out of other poems" 

-- in new space, to what may I refer? 

We bring our own light to a dark place. 

Crowbar, sledge hammer, pick 

pound Labrador granite. 

We make sounds from Arctic silence. 

Life is here and now -- we bring it. 

We bring men's laughter and good sense. 

What do we have to offer? Life. Our voices. Good sense and laughter. Advice to the poets of our time? Begin with your own words.