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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My interest in poetry has been rekindled. A lot of it has to do with my chapbook project I’m currently working on. I pulled out some poems I wrote several years ago to include in my chapbook. They aren’t enough. I knew I’d need to write more poems if I wanted my little book to be complete.

I began sketching out ideas, writing a few lines here and there and before I knew it, I was once again engrossed in poetry. Of course, you can’t write poetry without reading it. So I began digging through the works of my two favorite poets: Emily Dickinson and Wallace Stevens. I can identify with both poets on a personal level and I find their poems really powerful.

My favorite philosopher Martin Heidegger said that poetry opens up truth to man. On a deep level, I believe this true. However, this does not mean one needs to be a philosopher to enjoy and reap the rewards that comes from reading and/or writing poetry. A well-written poem can evoke the same emotions as a well-composed song, only in poetry, the words do all the work by acting as the instruments while a poem’s punctuation keeps the beat alive.

Maybe one day I’ll post some of my own poetic sketches here for all to read. It takes time to get to get that point because poetry requires one to be more vulnerable than with most other writing.  Don’t worry, when I get to that point, you’ll be the first to know.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christianrevivalnetwork/ / CC BY 2.0

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I guess you can say poetry is to the Arab world that music is to the US. So today, when I was listening to my daily mix of podcasts I subscribe to, I was very interested in this NPR Books podcast that talks about Arab poetry and its relation to culture and religion (the Quran, Islam’s holy book, is seen as the height of Arab poetry).

Even if you don’t normally listen to podcasts or subscribe to them, this episode is well worth your time, and it’s only about 6 minutes long. Enjoy!

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Nicholas Hughes was a marine biologist working in Alaska and has been suffering from depression:

Frieda Hughes, a poet, author and artist, said in a statement to the newspaper: "It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday March 16, 2009 at his home in Alaska.

"He had been battling depression for some time."

Another famous literary family can’t seem to break the cycle of depression and suicide, much like the family of Ernest Hemingway.

UPDATE: I just came across this article from The Guardian: Nicholas Hughes’s death tells us nothing about Sylvia Plath’s poetry. After reading the article, do you think this makes me guilty of sensationalism?

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Well today, the Chicago Tribune caught on to his literary musings in this piece, and even seeks to throw in some analysis of the Governor’s taste in poetry:

The governor’s identification with Tennyson’s hero might also raise eyebrows: In Greek mythology, Ulysses was less noted for honor than for craftiness, the ancient equivalent of wink-and-nod politics. Of him, Tennyson wrote: "I mete and dole/unequal laws unto a savage race."

Making such connections, however, is always walking a thin line between inserting our own biases when none may exist, and making a worthy comparison. In this case, I think the writer of the Tribune article made a worthy comparison – just my opinion though.

Presidents and writing

At the other end of the political spectrum, we have President-elect Obama, who represents the exact opposite of Gov. Blagojevich for most people. And Obama’s own literary style can be seen in his writing and in his speeches, representing a return to the tradition of the U.S. President being statesmen – something this country has gone without for a while now.

Even the mostly conservative Wall Street Journal couldn’t help complimenting President-elect Obama on his writing in this article:

In the last year, Obama’s 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father" (though not his later, more conventional campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope") has been discovered by the literary profession as if it were the Comstock Lode: He wrote it himself! Every sentence has its own graceful cadence! He could as easily be a novelist as a politician!

The article then goes on to look at other U.S. Presidents who were great writers – most notable is Abraham Lincoln:

The two-minute speech that Lincoln read at Gettysburg, dedicating the battlefield as a cemetery, is a miracle of verbal compression, so tightly packed with layers of implication that even now historians and critics are still uncovering fresh subtleties in its scant 270 words of text. The Gettysburg Address redefined the purpose and meaning of the nation with such richness and precision, and with such breathtaking economy, that it has become a classic of American literature, at least as great a piece of writing as "Moby-Dick"or the very best poems in "Leaves of Grass."

While it’s not a requirement for any U.S. politician to be eloquent (just look at Sarah Palin!), it certainly helps. It shows a certain thoughtfulness and intellect that can be of great use when being the most powerful person in the world.

I must confess that I have not yet read Dreams from My Father (aff link), but now I’m curious and will add it to my ever-expanding list of books I need to read.

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Today, after the Illinois House of Representatives voted to impeach the Governor, his response was in part a quote from a poem by Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, as reported here in the Chicago Tribune:

He closed his remarks by quoting from "Ulysses," a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

"We are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are. One equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield," said Blagojevich, prefacing his reading by acknowledging he first heard Sen. Ted Kennedy quote the poem at the 1980 Democratic National Convention.

Of course this is not the kind of attention poetry should be receiving – connected with an inept politician nearing the end of a disastrous career as governor.

But as they say (even though I have no idea who "they" are), even bad news can be good. This particularly applies to poetry. I guess if these strange quotes by Governor Blagojevich pique the interest of the public to read a little poetry, then some good will have come out this horrible time in Illinois politics.

I keep trying to think about what poem I’d quote if I were a politician about to be kicked out of office. Any suggestions?

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Yet that is exactly what happened at Waterstone’s Bookstore today in the UK. According to this BBC report, a book of poetry that was considered "Obscene and blasphemous" by a group called the Christian Voice:

Patrick Jones was due to sign copies at Waterstone’s in Cardiff but the shop cancelled the event at the last moment.

Christian Voice said the book was "obscene and blasphemous" and called on the chain to remove copies from stores.

The company said it was not a censor but felt it was "prudent" to cancel the event because of its duty to customers.

Surely, for the book signing to be canceled, it must have been directly critical and maybe even downright mean towards Christians and their faith, right? Not so fast:

He said he had not singled out Christianity in his poems, but was questioning beliefs in society.

Just as a side note, I did a quick search on Google, Amazon and Waterstone’s site because I’d very much like to read a review or two. If anyone out there can find anything like that, please leave a comment below. I found the book here on Waterstone’s site, but no reviews.

Regardless of the content, I still have a hard time understanding why Waterstone’s would give into such a group. Yes, they will still be selling the book. But was it really necessary to cancel the book signing? Luckily for Mr. Jones, he just signed copies of the book for customers outside the store on the sidewalk.

And what does Christian Voice say about this ordeal that they caused?

The national director of Christian Voice, Stephen Green, said the decision was a triumph "for the Lord, not for us".

"The Lord had not even showed me what we should do at Waterstone’s, only that it should be Christlike.

"Just the knowledge that we were on our way has put the fear of God into the opposition."

Mr Green also called for Waterstone’s to stop selling the book.

It’s that last line that disturbs me the most. While I don’t get much into religion on this blog, I do take a firm stance against any sort of book banning and censorship in general. But I will say this: Everyone has the right to their beliefs, but please, for the sake of our sanity, don’t try to force your beliefs on everyone else by pulling stunts like this.

Given the state of the world right now, and especially the state of religion, I don’t think a book of poetry, or any other book, is going to bring the world to an end.

While I hate giving publicity to these kind of groups, you can read Christian Voice’s own press release about the incident. Truly scary indeed that in 2008 (almost 2009) we still have to worry about stuff like banning books.

You can also read an atheist response here, which takes a much more hard line against Christian Voice and Waterstones for giving into such pressure.

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I came across an interesting snippet from the Guardian about taking vacations to famed literary spots around the world. And for those of us here in the United States, it doesn’t necessarily mean a trip overseas either:

For those keen to immerse themselves totally in the world of literature while on holiday, there’s a company in the States (www.literarytraveler.com) which offers literary tours.

A lot of bookworms would be surprised that many literary figures didn’t live in large cities like New York or Chicago or even Los Angeles (as many writers seem to migrate to today). In fact, according to the Guardian article, Concord, Massachusetts, a humble town of only about 15,000, can brag about being home to the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa M. Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others!

The article also points out that Trip Advisor gives a list of the top ten literary destinations  (links to a Reuters article).

If you have ever visited any of these literary hotspots, leave a comment and fill us in on the details.

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Empty beer bottles and cans, plastic cups and cellophane apparently used to hold marijuana were also found, according to Hodsden. The vandals vomited in the living room and discharged two fire extinguishers inside the building, located on a dead-end road off Route 125.

Either these kids didn’t know it was Robert Frost’s house and just chose a deserted house at random, or they knew about the poet’s house and thought it would be fun to throw a party there. The third option is they didn’t even know who Robert Frost was (wouldn’t be surprising given the low status poetry has in the US). I’m betting on the "they knew about the poets house and thought it would be fun to throw a party" option.

Frost gets a bad rap, especially here in the US. He’s considered some folksy, backwoods poet who writes about nature. While that is somewhat true, his poems often go much deeper than people give him credit for.

Back in 2005 I took a poetry class and we studied a little of Frost. At first, we didn’t really take him seriously until we started to really dig into the text. We quickly discovered that even poems like "The Road Not Taken"  had a very dark undercurrent running through them. Kinda disturbing.

As a side note, I always get Robert Frost confused with Jack Frost. Even in college I would sometimes refer to the poet as Jack Frost, only to be laughed at by my professor and then chastised by my classmates for the rest of the semester (you know how cruel kids can be)!

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There’s a book of poetry from one of the places you would least expect: the infamous Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Cuba where many "terror" suspects are still being held indefinitely with little or no legal recourse. The book is entitled Poems from Guantanamo.

According to one article on the Guardian Unlimited website:

The poems were scratched into the cups provided to the men with their lunch and were taken away with empty plates by the guards after each meal. But their author, Shaikh Abdurraheem Muslim Dost, a Pakistani poet and prolific author before his detention, reconstructed them from memory after his release in 2005.

A year after the camp opened, detainees were finally allowed pencil and paper, the article says. But even with the proper writing instruments, there was little hope of the poems ever being read by anyone aside from a few fellow prisoners. Security concerns keep most writings by the detainees classified. Even those few who are lucky enough to have a legal counsel can hardly just hand over a stack of poems to their lawyer (and that’s assuming a lawyer can even meet with them).

Why would a bunch of prisoners, who are considered to be terrorists by most in the US, turn to poetry? For those with a little heart, I don’t think the answer is all that surprising. Here’s a quote from another article entitled ‘Inside the Wire’:

Many of the poems deal with the pain and humiliation inflicted on the detainees by the US military. Others express disbelief and a sense of betrayal that Americans – described in one poem as "protectors of peace" – could deny detainees any kind of justice. Some engage with wider themes of nostalgia, hope and faith in God.

Sadly, a lot of the best inspiration in the arts stems from painful experiences. Even people who are perceived to be the worst among us are still human. They still have families that worry about them. This is the kind of thinking that Marc Falkoff, a lawyer representing 17 of the detainees, is trying to instill in the American public:

Falkoff is hoping the collection of poems from Guantánamo Bay will put
a human face on people branded by the former American defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld as "among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the Earth".

Given that many detainees have since been released, with many more going free each year, it’s getting easier to see the fallacy of labeling someone a terrorist or murderer just because the government says so. Nevertheless, this just goes to show the true power of poetry and that it can reach across all cultures.

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