Why Poetry Matters
Poetry isn’t matter - and yet it matters. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to freeform postmodernism, we’ve written poetry for as long as we’ve had language. Why has it prevailed? Why does it matter - and should it matter to you?
Jorge Luis Borges, the celebrated writer, poet, and essayist (also one of the literature’s most influential non-Nobel-Prize-winners), had a whimsical take on young poets. The anecdote goes that during a meeting of the Argentine Society of Writers, the topic of up-and-coming talent came up. ‘What can we do for young poets?’ he was asked. ‘We can dissuade them,’ Borges replied. And dissuade them we do. Don’t get into the arts; you’ll be poor and miserable, and you might develop a drug habit. To the naysayer's credit, history is filled with examples of poets and not-quite-poets consumed by their personal demons.
Paul Verlaine called them the poètes maudits - the cursed poets. Take Arthur Rimbaud, Verlaine’s friend, lover, and a true poetic prodigy. At sixteen, he was already writing groundbreaking verse, challenging the constraints of traditional meter, creating work that would later influence the likes of Samuel Beckett and John Ashbery. True to Verlaine's comments, Rimbaud also lived in poverty, abused alcohol and opium, and was considered by most of polite society to be rude, violent, and dirty.
Who wants that for their child? Neither reading nor writing poetry is likely to make you money and, by extension, improve your status. In a materialistic world, the immaterial can’t possibly make your life better. Or can it?
With the rise of Instagram poets (Rupi Kaur comes to mind), we’ve seen poetry can be a business. Kaur’s collections have sold over 10 million copies worldwide, and her estimated net worth is a whopping $1.2 million. Critics dub her banal, craftless, undeserving of the accolades, not a real poet. But the fact remains - here’s a girl who writes poems and makes good money doing it.
Whether you approve of Instagram poets or not, you can’t deny their impact. Social media has attracted new readers, skyrocketing poetry book sales. Through controversies (like whether Kaur even deserves to be called a poet), it has created conversation around literature and verse, bringing them into the spotlight. The whole phenomenon also proves one simple thing:
Even in the most materialistic sense, poetry does matter.
The market has assigned a monetary value to the written word. The poetry that sells might not be what shapes the evolution of poetic tradition, it might not even be good poetry, whatever good poetry means. Still, poetry does sell. To hell with intangible = worthless.
Of course, you are more likely to achieve a million-dollar net worth by starting your own business or becoming a successful software engineer. Young poets still get dissuaded by their families and communities. But, to say that poetry doesn’t matter in an economic sense would simply be inaccurate. Anyway, was it money and stability Borges was referring to? It doesn’t seem likely.
Let’s look for the answer with yet another Latin American poet - Pablo Neruda (unlike Borges, he did get the Nobel). In a 1968 speech at the University of Concepción, Neruda said:
‘Perhaps the duties of the poet have been the same throughout history. Poetry was honoured to go out into the streets, to take part in combat after combat ... Poetry is rebellion.’
Neruda’s own work is a testament to the political significance of poetry. His writing was shaped by the events that surrounded him - and it had a measurable impact on these events, too. Today, we still turn to Neruda’s verse when voicing our anger against injustice. At the 2017 Women’s March in Cairo, posters read “You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t stop Spring”. During the Arab Spring, activist Bahia Shehab spray-painted the same verse throughout the streets of Cairo. And, when the 2003 invasion of Iraq was looming, anti-war protesters plastered Neruda’s words on banners and placards.
Neruda is just one example. We can’t (or at least shouldn’t) talk about the poetry of resistance without mentioning:
Maya Angelou and the Civil Rights movement
Anna Akhmatova’s harrowing portrayals of Soviet atrocities
Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance
Federico García Lorca who was executed by an oppressive government for having “done more damage with a pen than others have with a pistol”.
Sarojini Naidu whose verse spoke out against imperialism and British oppression in India.
… and countless others
Poetry can and does elicit social change. Poetry is, indeed, rebellion.
But the rebellion of poetry goes beyond the external, too. I have a theory I like to bring up around artistically inclined people for its shock value. I believe all art should be outlawed. Anyone caught writing, or painting, or making music should be executed. Would art cease to exist? Far from it. The volume of new art created might drop, but composers would still compose, artists would paint, poets would write. Creation, when desperately needed, is impossible to stop. Some of the world’s most opressive regimes have tried; burning books and sending writers to concentration camps - to absolutely no avail.
In So You Want To Be A Writer? ? Bukowski opens with:
if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
Poetry - reading it, writing it, inhaling it; is an inherently rebellious activity. It is fitting that Borges (who devoted his life work to his love of language and literature) would try to dissuade young poets. Discouraging them is impossible. You can’t deter a poet. And if you did, then maybe they were no poet at all. In overcoming the disillusionment with poetry’s impracticality, we can embrace the intangible. We can overcome our resistance and emerge with a new understanding of the world and others.
Poetry is a tool of personal transformation for both poet and reader.
There is perhaps no better illustration of this than The Poetry Pharmacy, an initiative by the publisher and philanthropist William Sieghart. It’s a simple concept. You go to Sieghart with your worries, pains, and anxieties - he prescribes a poem to help you heal.
Lonely? He would prescribe the words of 7th-century Persian poet Hafiz of Shiraz:
“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the Astonishing Light of your own Being!”
Afraid and in need of courage? Take this poem by French poet Apollinaire:
“Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, we're afraid!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
"We can't, We will fall!" they responded.
"Come to the edge," he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.
Through The Poetry Pharmacy, Sieghart has harnessed poetry as a tool to connect, process, and heal. There is so much sorrow in the intricate human experience. Through verse, we converse with people long gone; we receive comfort and empathy for our pain, as well as hope and love - all dressed in beautiful, melodic, meaning-dense language. It is what poetry can do - give you the push you need to fly.
The significance of poetry, then, is in its ability to change lives. On a grand, social scale and on a personal, intimate level, too. The craft has evolved throughout the centuries, becoming interwoven with the very essence of what it means to be human. Poetry has been around for a long time, remember?
As our world grows more complex, fast-paced, and scary, poetry can (as Neruda put it) “explain some things.” These things - they are the why. So let poetry matter to you; let it help you live a fuller, kinder, more conscious, more connected life. And, please, don’t be dissuaded - live out your poetic rebellion instead.
Notes:
You can watch William Sieghart’s TEDx talk on The Healing Power of Poetry here. Read more poems for social change in the Poetry Foundation’s Poems of Protest, Resistance, and Empowerment collection here. Learn about Pablo Neruda’s poetry of resistance here.
Written by Denny Pencheva
Denny is a 6th-year medical student who also works in SEO. Clearly, she sleeps very little. On the plus side, she finds time to read, drink coffee, and go to weird modern art exhibitions quite a lot.
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