Why poetry matters

Of all the literary forms that have fallen out of fashion, I think poetry suffers the most. The mainstream public simply doesn’t have an interest in poetry, and it shows in the painfully low sales numbers of compilations of poetry books. I think a large reason for the miserable popularity of poetry is because reading a poem is not a passive activity. It takes work. A poem needs to be read over and over again for the reader to even begin to understand it.

If reading a novel is like wandering through a museum, with all the exhibits neatly organized and laid out with a tidy explanation written for each specimen, then reading poetry is like being an archeologist at an excavation site – slowly sifting through layers of earth and piecing together meaning from the mounds of rubble. In a world that demands immediate gratification through computers, video games, movies and the like, poetry seems like an ancient relic that has lost importance.

Still, there are people who actively engage poetry every day, either by reading or writing it. Maybe poetry is a hobby. Or maybe a person is lucky enough to scrape out a living by writing line after line of verse. But what’s the point? If poetry rates so low on society’s scale that it barely registers, then why even bother? The answer, in short, is because poetry matters.

I found an excellent blog post about the importance of poetry written by Timothy Green. In his post, Timothy compares the utility of poetry to that of science. For obvious reasons, science beats out poetry every time. Science cures diseases, prolongs life and answers the mysteries of the universe. What about poetry?

Why is always more important to a consciousness than how, and I began to see science as the how and art as the why.  What value is there in living a longer life, if it’s lived poorly?  If I could dedicate a writing life to the ideals of collectivity and kindness, if I could help illuminate the interdependency of individuals and the moral power of self-created meaning, then I could do more good than the invention of a million pain killers.

Poetry illuminates the human condition and exposes certain truths about our existence that cannot be expressed any other way. But Timothy argues that the poems themselves, as individual works aren’t important:

But that doesn’t mean that poetry isn’t important.  Poems themselves are inconsequential, but poetry — as an activity, as a mindset — is central to all that is important.  The pursuit of poetry is the distillation of that critical Why – it’s what we live for, what can “make us bear any how.”

Timothy continues:

Poetry isn’t a career, or a passion, or a form of entertainment.  It’s a lifestyle.  It’s an entire doctrineless philosophy that we reconfigure into each of those things.  To engage in poetry, whether reading or writing, is to practice an enriching attentiveness.  To practice poetry is to pluck detail from the surrounding world — to see things more clearly, to recognize beauty, to experience pain, to struggle to connect.

My understanding of Timothy’s blog post is that understand why poetry matters requires a fundamental rethinking about poetry. Instead of concentrating on certain poems and how they might change the world, we should concentrate as poetry as a whole, as a philosophy.

On a personal note, I enjoy reading individual poems. I like to ponder their potential meaning, even hidden ones that the poet never thought of when composing the poem. I admire that craft of poetry and how each word is important and contributes to the poem’s overall meaning. For me, reading and writing poetry is cathartic, releasing emotions and thoughts I never knew were possible.

What value do you gain from poetry (from either reading or composing your own poems)? What do you think is the utility of poetry? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

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