On Poetry

                “Hey, have a look at this poem!”

Language distillation.

                Let’s ponder the social situations where the above line would be acceptable, maybe even successful. After quitting time at the mill, and stopping by the pub to watch the game: no. When the mayor has just announced that education funding has been cut so you won’t get that new French Immersion elementary and through tears asks if anyone has any questions: nope. When getting hot and heavy on a fifth or fifth date and someone’s hand slides up someone else’s shirt: un unh. When the Stanley Cup is being raised in June and when you’re looking something that encapsulates the moment more feelingly than “F#@kin’ rights, boys!”: alas, no.

                So, maybe there’s no good time to say, “Hey, have a look at this poem.”

                Well, although I emphatically disagree with the sentiment, I can line up on bare syntactical grounds. Have a look, no—have a listen. Now we’re on to something.

                Why most folks hate poetry is because most folks don’t understand it, that is how it’s being used. USED, I say. Employed, son, not simply read.

                Poetry hasn’t been replaced, but it’s been somewhat substituted. It doesn’t always suit our nine to five, work/eat/tv/sleep lifestyles. Time was your average dude would appreciate you rattling off a verse at the end of the day—a samurai for sure!—but popular music has nicely filled that void without people who really aren’t made that way having to actually read or listen to someone else reading. The beauty of this substitution is the layman finds Taylor swift much more approachable than Jonathan.

                See, to get poetry, to really dig a poem, you have to get right in there. Dig in, let your toes squish, soak it up. It’s something people don’t often take the time for even though it’s one of our shortest art forms. And yet we can binge on three straight seasons of Orange is the New Black in an evening.

                With poetry, what you’re looking for is not plot, not events. It’s how language is used with passion. A rave or a rant, in writing that revels ore reveals. This is the essence of poetry.

                How to start? Forget everything you know about poetry. Banish all assumptions. Suspend all illusions. Delete all clichés. If your idea of poetry is Jim Morrison, then you need an education because getting drunk and hollering pages from the thesaurus isn’t art. It’s just complicated-sounding noise. The reason you hate poetry is because Jim Morrison and some beatniks you read in high school convinced you it’s too hard to understand because they were saying nothing. It still needs a point.

                A poem asks a question, it presents a problem. At some point its style will completely shift. A very good poetry teacher once told me that a poem is like a three frame strip comic. Establish/complicate/answer. All there is to it.

                Get it, got it, good.

                Now quit being afraid of it.

                This can be the richest form of our expression. This is when our words come best, when in tiny capsules of brilliance we can let out pieces of our soul, our best. Like pamphlets of Eden.

                Why not? Don’t be afraid of your soul, of your emotions, of truth. Poetry is like a hyperactive kid with no Ritalin in sight. It doesn’t hold back, nor should it.

                Read poetry every day.