It has been often remarked that poetry is “the music of our life.” In poetry’s measured lines, whether in the form of free verse or iambic pentameter, we can find a rhythm that gives meaning and context to our daily existence. Literature, and especially poetry, has the power to make us look into our soul at the very same time that we are looking at the outside world. With poetry we can both find ourselves and lose ourselves, all in one line, one stanza.
Poetry, like music, is the rawest and most pure form of communication. Most of us have at one point or the other, read a poem, or listened to a piece of music, that made our imagination soar and perhaps even taken on greater flights of fancy. It is because of this raw power that over 400 years later we still quote passages from Shakespeare for inspiration, purpose or guidance.
The writer C. S. Lewis once remarked, “In reading literature one becomes a thousand men and women and yet remain oneself. Like a night sky in the Greek poem, I see with myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself and am never more myself than when I do.” (NOTE: C. S. Lewis was an Irish writer, poet, philosopher and essayist. His most famous literary works include, The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. Why does it seem that the best English writers were mostly Irish? ERIN GO BRAGH!).
It is no secret to my friends that I love literature. It is also no secret that I love writing, especially poetry. I once heard someone comment that we should all read poetry everyday, even if it is just a few lines. I would like to go one step further and encourage everyone to everyday write some poetry, even if it is only a few lines of verse.
In order to write good poetry, or any poetry for that matter since there is really no such thing as “bad” poetry, we also need to read poetry. We should read poetry not in order to slavishly copy other poet’s styles; we must al develop our own style and find our own, unique voice. We need to read poetry simply for the delicious pleasure of savoring the words on the text.
With that in mind, I would like to start a new feature of the Between Homes (BH) blog. I will call it FRIDAY MORNING POETRY CORNER. Every Friday, (or as time permits) I will choose a passage, or passages from some poet. I will post the passage and I will encourage each of you to read it, savor it. I also invite you (if you are feeling very ambitious or just want to make me happy) to post your comments about the poem. What did it mean to you? How did it make you feel? What do you think the writer was trying to get across to her audience? Actually I was kidding about the part of wanting to “make me happy.” You should write comments about your reaction to the particular poem for your sake; to help you open up your heart and mind.
For today’s FRIDAY MORNING POETRY CORNER I would like to feature two selections from Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892). Whitman was an American poet, essayist, journalist and humanist. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.
The two selections below are from Whitman’s Song of Myself. The poem was first published without sections and appeared as the first of twelve untitled poems in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Today it is one of the best-known poems in the book. The first edition was published by Whitman at his own expense. (Whitman, like Ben Franklin before him, was one of the first blogists. If the Internet had been in existence in Whitman’s time, he would surely have his own poetry blog.)
What do you think of this particular passage?
Through me forbidden voices,
Voices of the sexes and lusts, voices veil’d and I remove the veil,
Voices indecent by me clarified and transfigur’d.
I do not press my fingers across my mouth,
I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart,
Copulation is no more rank to me than death is.
I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
It is almost too funny to read the outrage expressed by Whitman’s contemporaries when they read the passage above. Whitman was accused of being vulgar, over-sexed and worse. And yet, all that Whitman was trying to tell us, I think, is not to be ashamed of our feelings, not to be ashamed of our bodies and to understand that our basic, raw (and even smelly) humanity is far greater than all the churches in the world. Perhaps Whitman was telling us that God, however you may conceive him or her to be, lives inside each of us and cannot be found in churches or temples. I am almost sure that Christ would agree with that.
What do YOU think?
The next passage, also from Song of Myself, became very popular after the 9-11 attack on the USA. Newspapers across the world carried haunting images of firefighters, police officers and other first responders marching into burning, crumbling buildings, looking for victims to rescue, and coming out covered in dust and ashes. Many of these brave heroes never made it out alive and were forever entombed in the collapsed debris.
Whitman’s verse seemed so appropriate at the time, conveying in a way that only words can convey, what it is like to be a rescuer, to be trapped by debris, and to then wait to be rescued himself.
I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels,
They have clear’d the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.
(Image from http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/home2.shtml all rights fully reserved by the copyright holder or holders.)
I hope that you enjoyed these selections. I hope that they made you think, made you feel and made you connect with your humanity.
Please feel free to post your comments or, better still, post your own poetry here.
