Poetry: Why We Celebrate It by C.L. Toups
Inaugurated in 1996 by the American Academy of Poets, National Poetry Month seeks to raise the awareness and appreciation of poetry—in all its various forms and genres—as a vital part of our literary heritage. But what is poetry, exactly?
Determining one official definition is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. Early attempts to define and discuss its aesthetics date back as far as Aristotle’s Poetics, while the art form itself pre-dates written language. Every literary movement from the Traditionalists to the Post-modernists—and beyond—has asserted its own partisan interpretations of poetry in response to historical events and cultural shifts. Wordsworth most famously declared poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion reflected in tranquility.” Eliot said that “genuine poetry can communicate before it’s understood,” and Frost, most practically and cryptically, dubbed poetry “the kind of things poets write.”
Poetry inhabits an enduring place in the history of human experience. It is a powerful medium of record and reflection and has provided a continuity of witness through the centuries. Poetry can make order out of chaos, mock the chaos of order, shape subjectivity, challenge objectivity, give voice to unrealized thoughts and emotions, remind us of our past, and offer us a glimpse into the future. It provides a fertile field of experimentation for language, sound, and imagery. It is the “free spot” where fairy tale, philosophy, the concrete and the esoteric, argument and imagination all coexist peaceably to evoke a multiplicity of meaning.
Poetry is many things, and we—both writers and readers—should be glad for its fluid nature without engaging it in too much interrogation. As Frost once remarked, “Poetry is what gets lost in translation.”
Perhaps the more important quest for us regarding poetry should be what we discover about our own responses to reading (and writing) it. Why do we appreciate the impact of a particular image or the lulling rhythm of a verse that remains with us long after the words on the page are gone from sight? How do we feel when we find the precise words needed to articulate a complex emotion or thought? What are the rewards we experience when we’ve made a connection to something or someone outside ourselves and find solace?
In the movie, Dead Poet’s Society, there is a scene where Robin Williams’ character, Professor Keating, urges his students to stand on their desktops. It is a way to remind them to consider the world from a different perspective. We, too, from time to time, must remember to stand on the proverbial desktop and look at ourselves and the world with a fresh pair of eyes. Poetry can be the lens through which we do this. I leave you with this quote from Professor Keating because I think it is a wonderful sentiment about the power of poetry in our lives:
We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.
C. L. Toups is Managing Editor and Senior Poetry Editor of Rose & Thorn Journal.
Loved this. Makes me want to read and write poetry right now. Great post!
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This was so beautiful and well-stated. Thank you! I hope you don't mind me sharing a bit of this on my blog. I think poetry is underrated amongst most of the writers I converse with. When I learned to love poetry, I learned to see the world.
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Lovely post!
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A good comment on getting a better perspective on poetry.
Whether standing on desktops or on the shoulders of the poets who have gone before us,new fields open to us.
m
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Thanks for your support and informative post.
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Lovely post.
Well-written poetry -- which I like to refer to as a distillation of language --
captures so much of the human experience in so few words, and performs its own particular magic in doing so.
And who wouldn't benefit from the occasional viewpoint from a desktop!
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Good site. I will go more often to you
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