WHAT USE IS POETRY
The time was
1955 when I was in high school the teacher, read a poem about a raven who was
quoting something.
It seemed
quite preposterous, so I decided poetry was about as useless as a glass eye in a
keyhole. Poetry, frankly speaking didn’t show me a thing. I indorsed Plato’s
point of view that, “The great and wise things in their poems the poets
themselves do not understand.”
I learned
from other sources.
Now that I am
older, much older, I enjoy a poem if it isn’t in a confused, entangled
condition. A poet generally writes a poem for money. I suppose, therefore, if
he were smart he should lower his style to widen his audience. Would people
resent simplification with the feeling their intelligence was being insulted? I
don’t think so because people like to read faster and understand more.
In the book,
“Collected Poems of Robert Frost,” there is a plain poem with the title, “The
Death of the Hired Man.” It is plain and supreme, my foremost favorite
poemer. You will notice this poem, is
many pages long, and is the kind that doesn’t go over your head. It is a poem
that offers a new way of looking at the ordinary. It proves that science isn’t
the only thing that can teach people what the world is made of and how it
works. A scientist, for instance, says the moon is a body about 2,160 miles in
diameter which revolves around the earth monthly at a mean distance of 238,857
miles accompanying the earth in its annual revolution about the sun.
Robert Frost
(1874-1963) gives bright images that impress the mind.
Part of a moon was falling down in the west,
Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.
Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it
And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings.”
The scientist gave his information in cold facts while the second description examines the moon as an individual object. It relates the moon with other things: the sky, the hills.
“The Death of the Hired Man,” published in 1915; it impressed me with its natural human attitude. It stressed the type of courtesy an average farmer and his wife will extend toward a shiftless man. The farmer did all that was natural and more than fair for Silas, the hired man, but he was still not dependable.
“When was I ever
anything but kind to him?
But I’ll not have the fellow back,” he said. ‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I?
“If he left then,” I said, “That ended it.”
What good is he? Who else will harbor him
At his age for the little he can do?
What help he is there’s no depending on.”
The hired man’s
questionable traits were often over-looked because of his technique with the
hay.
‘He bundles every forkful in its place,
And tags and numbers it for future reference,
So he can find and easily dislodge it
In the unloading. Silas does that well.
He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.
You never see him standing on the hay
He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.”
This is an emotional poem. I had a feeling of sadness dwelled inside me due to the personality of the man. A personality that had left forever the hardships of this world. There are few samples of poetry so educating and faultless. To have once said poetry didn’t show me anything was a most extraordinary incorrect thing to say.
Why read poetry? Some people think poetry is useless because it doesn’t help them to earn money. That poetry doesn’t help to earn money is what many people say whose main object in life is to earn money. These same people imply that it’s all right for the people with plenty of time to waste, but it’s no good to the man on the street. This is certainly untrue; poetry does have something to do with the ordinary man-on-the-street. The man on the street that reads poetry is aware of more things going on in the world than the ones who don't read. He has found that poetry uses words to create effects so as to brighten up his world. The fact that poetry doesn’t help a person to “cash in” doesn’t’ mean it isn’t something superior. But if a person doesn’t want to see more of the world than meets the eye, he should avoid reading poetry like he would avoid talking with a mad man. Just because some people avoid poetry like they would a mad man doesn’t mean poets are crazy. Just because poets have a kind of unaccountable inspiration doesn’t mean they should see a psychiatrist. Some poets do go mad, but even when they do go mad, their poetry is often more sane and wise than the talk of the same people who say that poetry is useless.
Poetry is one of the greatest glories of a nation. A nation recognizes the poetry of another nation as a contribution to the good of the world, and because their poems are imperishable, poets win a fame more lasting that that of generals or politicians.
Poetry is the
last thing any sensible person should despise. It tells the inside of things as
well as the outside, and thus helps people to know the world as intimately and
well as they know a friend.
Don’t forget there
are 1,440 minutes in a day, and twenty-two minutes of moderate poetry, is
exercise needed for a normal man-on-the street.
To read more Karl Wallace stories go to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
