Lets Never Go Back There Again
Whenever Apr comes around, and I realize that information technology'south National Poetry Calendar month, I get a little nervous. I'thou a poet, and National Poetry Calendar month makes me think almost how fumbling and inarticulate I feel whenever someone asks me what I write poems about, or why I write poems, or what'due south so great nigh poems. Information technology'south not that the questions are unfair, of course; information technology's just that I don't know the answers. I barbarous in honey with poetry at some point in my life, long before I knew what information technology was or how to make it. I know that poetry matters, just it's difficult for me to explain how or why.
This year, I'1000 thinking about that difficulty equally National Poetry Month rolls around, and the springtime with it, and we emerge — or, possibly, we don't emerge — from years of a little more social isolation than we're used to. We're irresolute, and yes, we're always changing, only at the moment, as a civilization, it seems to me that we're pretty uncomfortable about it. I believe poetry might offer us some tools for embracing change, so I'm going to give that a try hither past explaining why the medium matters so much.
Poetry Is Common and Everywhere
First, permit's bargain with the problem of our general perception of poetry. We tend to think of poetry as special or unusual, removed from the mundane happenings of everyday life. People read poems at special occasions like weddings and funerals, or they learn most the poems and poets assigned to them in English classes, or they come across $.25 of poetry memed in faux-inspirational Facebook posts.
I'thousand not saying that stuff isn't poetry, but I'thou saying it's definitely not all of it. The primeval forms of poetry weren't written down but spoken aloud: not on the page, but in the torso. Poetry was — and is — closely related to music, which nosotros readily have is capable of making united states experience without necessarily making sense. It's thought that the primeval poems were cultural attempts to retrieve what needed to exist remembered.
Put all this together, and you lot begin to empathise poetry as an entirely necessary piece of advice. Information technology's an everyday thing. Like every day of your life, poetry's full of experimentation and feeling. Information technology'southward trying to say what needs to be said but in a way that'due south new, total of life, and able to be remembered when we need it nearly.
Learning What Y'all Already Know
I've had the experience at present and once more of going back to look at something I wrote years agone and realizing that information technology contains information I've been needing. When my grandmother passed away, I happened to find an old poem I wrote that had some lines about acceptance and retentivity. I'd been feeling overwhelmed and sorry most her death, merely suddenly my ain verse form, coming to me from out of the by, seemed helpful. I felt almost like I time-traveled back to the by to make certain I jotted down the thoughts I'd need in the future. Almost.
Poetry is useful in other ways, though. The fashion we experience the world is completely entangled in the language we use to draw information technology. That linguistic communication is largely metaphorical, and poetry is great at coming up with metaphors. When you have lost someone, your heart breaks. When y'all finally understand something, you run into the calorie-free. When y'all're feeling wonderful, you might even exist glowing. These statements are not literally true, but they feel even truer than true. The comparison amplifies the truth.
It's fortunate for us that language works this manner, because it ways it's capable of changing as it adapts to the way we experience the earth — equally our frames of reference modify, and as our bachelor comparisons change. Language adapts whether we resist that accommodation or not, just more than and more, it seems to me that we're agape of irresolute. The pandemic, our politics, and a million other things accept u.s.a. using a lot of language about "getting back to normal," but our ability to change is essential. As the poet Eleni Sikelianos puts information technology: "Poems maximize the adaptability of linguistic communication, and, as we know, accommodation is cardinal to beast survival."
Let Poetry Change Your Heed This National Poetry Month
The rules of linguistic communication are e'er a little bit behind the people who utilise it. Grammatical rules are an attempt to capture a moment in time — to say, "Here's how we're doing information technology at present." Nosotros're alive, though. In one case nosotros've described "at present," it'southward already in the by, and we've moved on. Never mind the fact that there are thousands of languages operating with thousands of sets of rules.
This should be both liberating and humbling. We should exist free to play effectually in our language, to manipulate it and alter it and see if nosotros tin brand it work for us. On the other hand, we can never fully understand it — it's an organic thing, living and changing in response to the earth of which it is a part. Conversations around what pronouns people utilize brand it clear that this stuff produces a lot of cultural feet. I wish it wouldn't, and I think poetry tin help.
I'll end with an instance from a poem chosen "Facing Information technology," by the not bad American poet Yusef Komunyakaa. In the poem, a veteran of the war in Vietnam is looking at his reflection in the wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
At the beginning of the poem, the veteran sees his confront in the granite and thinks: "I'm stone." And so the rest of the poem happens. Past the end of it, he thinks: "I'one thousand a window." It'southward non that the hurting, or the horrors of state of war, or the cruelties of life have disappeared, it'south just that the verse form embodies a modify in the bearing of the person. I think about that a lot — about the importance of knowing both that I can change my mind and that my mind tin can alter. This April, once once more, it feels skillful to be reminded.
Source: https://www.ask.com/culture/national-poetry-month-let-poetry-change-your-mind?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740004%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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