APPRECIATION #10: POETRY

Poetry is embarrassing and makes many people feel uncomfortable. It’s the most important thing in the world, and the least at the same time. When people start talking about poems, or slip them into books, there is a habit to apologize. If somebody asks you to read a poem of theirs, it’s often interpreted as a chore or a favor, not a gift. Most people would much rather be asked to try a new cookie recipe.

I’ve looked at studies recently that said less than 10% of the adult population regularly reads poetry on their own. It seems like work for so many, or too many riddles. Well, I like it. Or, I should say that I like some of it. It’s not uncommon for me to read through an entire book of poems and say out loud, “meh.” That’s normal.

Poems are like Hail Mary passes in football. The ball is often dropped, and the other team is then on offense. But when it’s caught it’s amazing. Most poems I read I don’t like, or don’t get, or just don’t feel. But when I find one that hits the mark, it changes me.

Part of the problem with poetry is that we don’t recognize it as such. I had a student a few years ago who went on and on about how he hated figurative language and poetry. It was stupid and pointless and nobody liked it or cared about it and it didn’t make any sense and he can’t believe that we were even going to mention it in an English class when we could just spend the whole year working on a resume. He showed up a day after one of these rants with a tattoo on his arm that said Psalm 23.

I appreciate what poems attempt, though for me they often miss. I am putting together my second poetry collection right now because I can’t not. For me, they make sense, and they are a needed catharsis, a needed attempt to arrange or categorize or engage with the world. I started taking poetry breaks the way some people take cigarette breaks. I realize this is easy to mock. Whatever. I am a better more complete person because of the time I have spent with the poetry in the Bible and the poetry of Gary Snyder, William Stafford, Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams, Basho, Billy Collins and many others.