Some Words on Poetry
Chekhov, whilst writing his lesser-known work A Journey to Sakhalin, is said to have confessed that he just felt compelled to write about the things that he saw. A little earlier, though far, far away, the little-known Dorset poet William Barnes coined the term the poetic eye. Some people like to put what they experience into words, or rather, feel they have to; some people see things, and they see a poem, and they like to – no, they feel they have to – try and express what they have seen in the form of a poem. The dream for these is to write something that, when read, evokes what was seen, as when pastoral music somehow evokes the rolling, green hills of the countryside. Poetry is but another form of art, and can be as evocative as an impressionist painting. If you don’t believe me, just read some Robert Frost and find yourself transported to rural New England, or the aforementioned William Barnes, and find yourself in the company of peasants from nineteenth century Dorset!
But why poetry, the hoi polloi cry out? Well, poetry can of course be therapeutic, to help one work through emotions that have been welling deep inside, to get them out rather than keep them in, and to make sense of them, but there is more to it than this. Surely poetry is one of those things that separate us from every other creature on the planet. Too often we find ourselves caught up in the ‘realities’ of life – work, family, and problems– and have little time for anything else, and we think that these ‘realities’ are what are important. But I tell you this: we have it the wrong way round, and that it is poetry and her playmates that really matter. These are the things that make the world beautiful, and these are the things that make us human! Sometimes we are scared of poetry, sometimes we are embarrassed by it, but we shouldn’t be, and we mustn’t be, for it is just too important!
And so we come to the how. Well, most of us come to poetry late, and there are many reasons for this. One is that, as youths, we haven’t really experienced much of the world and what it has to offer. There just hasn’t been an awful lot to write about yet. Secondly, there is also that fear and embarrassment which the word poetry is loaded with. And then there is the education system. With terms like metaphor, and anaphora, and alliteration almost drilled into our heads, there can be no surprise that we flee from poetry as fast as we can. We are just so focused on style, on minutiae, and we miss the actual meaning, the real essence of a poem. This is all wrong. We should write, about what we see, about what we experience, about what we feel, things that really matter to us. And we should keep it simple, and we should keep it precise.
So go away and write, and then write some more, knowing this, that you will never get it wrong – and how many things can that be said about – for there is nothing to get wrong, and that you will always improve, with every single poem you write. Write about what you want to write about – and you needn’t show it to anyone else – but I promise you this: things will never be the same again; you will never see the world in the same light again; everything will seem so much more beautiful than before. And you will breathe. For the first time, you will breathe, and the air that you will breathe will be the breath of poetry. Fill yourself with it, and it will warm your soul. It might not keep you alive, but while you are alive, you will really be alive.
The Young Rhymer Snubbed
To meäke up rhymes, my mind wer zoo a-vire
‘Twer idle work to try to keep me quiet,
O’ meäken rhymes my heart did never tire;
Though I should never be a gainer by it.
“You meäke up rhyme!” vo’k zaid, “why who would buy it?
Could you write fine enough to please a squire?
An’ rhyme’s what plain vo’k woudden much require;
You’d vind your rhymes would eärn but scanty diet,
An’ if I’d any cure vor it, I’m sure I’d try it.”
An’ father too, in learnen noo great crammer,
Zaid rhymen wer a treäde but vew got fat in;
That men wi’ neämes a-ringen wi’ a clamour
Did live in holes not fit to put a cat in,
An’ sleep on locks o’ straw, or bits o’ matten;
An’ mother zaid she’d sooner hear me stammer
Than gauk about a-gabblen rhymes an’ Latin.
I’d better crack my noddle wi’ her patten,
She used to zay, or crack en wi’ a hammer,
Than vill en up wi’ rhymes, an’ silly stuff o’ grammar.
My father didden rhymy. He knew better.
Bezides his business, an’ to buy an’ zell,
He only learnt to write a friend a letter,
That always went a hopen he wer well;
Or in a ledger, or a bill, to tell
Vor what an’ when a man became his debtor;
An’ mother too, I never shall vorget her,
Wer only just a-taught to read an’ spell,
An’ mark a teäble-cloth or napkin pretty well.
An’ zoo I vound my friends think all the seäme o’t,
That rhyme won’t vill the pocket over tight,
But then my heart did kindle wi’ the fleäme o’t,
Whenever I did zee a touchen zight,
An’ I did all but lose my wits there-right.
‘Tis likely I shall meäke a losen geäme o’t,
But still, ageän, to lighten off the bleäme o’t,
Vor all do keep me poor, it still will bring
My heart a pleasure that do leäve noo sting.
