WHAT IS POETRY?
I think that a lot has been said about what poetry is, about what it can be.
Then of course, there is the actual definition of what poetry is
“A piece of writing in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by particular attention to diction, rhythm and imagery”
That is (of course) not what this post will be talking about. So remove that specific idea of poetry from your mind. Here, in this thing you are reading now, poetry is the heart of art.
[Please do not cringe, ha-ha]
Alright now. A few years back, I spoke to someone about this definition that I had come up with. They took offence to it.
Why?
Well, because they did not think it was fair that poetry, this singular specific art form, should take the spot light when all of the other mediums exist- music, movies, dance and all the rest. The person thought that I meant poetry was the core, the building-block of all art forms.
Yes, that is what I meant.
But I did not mean poetry in the sense that we all know it to be, it is not poetry as in rhyming words, do not go gentle into that good night [rage, rage against the dying of the light!]. I am not talking about that. Not Mary Oliver poetry, Christopher Okigbo, not Shakespeare. Not the lyrical things you might have been forced to read in school.
I am not even talking about something you can read, directly. Or see definitely, or touch. I am talking about that little, elusive thing we all encounter in art from time to time. That moment when we hear a good song and get a little lost in it. When we feel as though we have gone out of ourselves and into the – into the whatever the song is trying to make us feel.
That is what I mean by poetry, I hope you can understand that.
Although, I can certainly guess that you might have experienced it too.
I say too, because this thing I call poetry is a common denominator to us all. One of the common graces, like sunshine, knowledge, sleep and great food. Common, because it unites us in a shared experience of human emotion, and life, and this sticky thing that hides in good art, hope.
I am bringing hope out specifically, because it is a very important thing about art, about poetry.
Because great art points us beyond itself, and beyond ourselves. It is a friend and a light in different moments of our lives. Lighting up the joyful moments, being a lighthouse in the fog for people who are grieving something, dealing with something, or are searching for something they feel is lost. The poetry in art is that thing that shines a stark beam towards, something.
But what is that poetry pointing us to, where is it calling us to come to?
I have my theories.
But first, I want to be a little exclusionary, and start with what poetry does for the artist {defined as anyone who makes any form of art].
WHAT IS POETRY TO THE ARTIST?
I think poetry, calls the artist, home.
It does so by guiding an artist in shaping their experiences into their art. Whatever form they choose to express that in, the constant in good art is that solid satisfaction within the process of creating, and where one has told the truth, as it is. As it exists.
This is very important, I believe.
And I also see that it is very risky business. Something like telling the actual truth within the art a person creates requires courage. Because, there are many reasons not to do it. It might be less popular for example, and that could cause anything from backlash to less interest in the work, compared to if the creator had chosen to do it in a different way.
This might be the biggest reason to not make it according to that truth; what will people think?
Who knows, really?
What can be known though, and maybe this extends beyond art to all of the uncomfortable, vulnerable positions we face in life from time to time, what you can be sure of is what your own original intentions are like. You are the custodian of that. Your intentions with an idea, a career, a friendship, how do you go about executing them?
In art, how will you allow it play out on the canvas?
From my own experience, there is a way that one would really like to have it done, and a way one believes it should be done. When this discordance presents itself, in creating art, what is the right choice?
Well, I think that is where the hope in art comes through for the artist.
Hope is beyond feeling, it is a functional tool in re-imagining the world we live in. In exploring new possibilities. It is a catalyst for change, and for new worlds. It goes beyond wishful thinking. And because that hope operates within a truth that the artist is privy to, it points to the best way. It points the artist to the right way to create an alternate home, starting from the work they craft.
That is its role, its importance in guiding the artist.
WHAT IS POETRY IN REGULAR DAILY LIFE, THEN?
Well, if art does that for the artist, what does it do for the people who are content to just consume art and not really create anything in that manner?
I think about how human life is just a set of daily experiences. We experience the world one day at a time. All of the ordinary things happen on days, all of the extra-ordinary things happen on days too. And perhaps that is the authenticity that poetry has, the truth that it speaks in – even as it meets us in these ordinary containers of our lives - it can elevate us in them, meet us where we are and then take us further.
The dreary, and sometimes boundless din of daily life makes us need art to realise that there is a higher ideal to strive towards. We require art to guide us in navigating the many possibilities that ideal could have.
It leans forward to reach out in the mundane, in the valley, and at the heights to say different things, in different ways. To remind one of the sanctity of personhood, the value of hope. And maybe of our sometimes confusing existence.
Yet it never prescribes how to come to the understanding of these things, all it does is personify that such a thing exists, and that it is precious and it should be considered, worked towards.
SO…
I will close this on a sort of hopeful note, and I hope this short entry has reminded you of something you might have forgotten.
The process of writing it did jog my memory about why I used to be so enamoured by art in the past. I have been reminded of Poetry’s role as a friend, as kindness within the art that I create. How it gives courage in placing these small intimacies in the work I do. Because it pointing beyond itself means what I do is elevated from being a mere performance to a spring, or a bridge that invites the world, as it invites me, to witness and consider a different part of this sometimes monotonous hum of being a human being.