A summation of poetry

For me, poetry is primarily a quality – let us say, without a sharp definition – a lyricism, an intensity of language, an attempt to circle and strike at what is more deep-seated than our simple intellect. I still expect there to be meaning – although I will not always find it - in every poem I read. And when it comes to poetry I try not to become entangled in its many forms and definitions – although I sometimes enjoy those questions.

For myself, I pick and choose. If I find a poem too obscure, I move on, although I also assume that with poetry I will sometimes have to attend with some care to what I am reading. And I recognize that there will be some poems I might not have the mind to comprehend. But there are far more poems that I can reach if I only will. And there is much poetry that has not been designed as a formal poem waiting to be discovered.

Resonance in the words, the sounds that enter my mind or leave my lips, and of course the ideas – that is what most matters to me.

A few examples will have to suffice:

T. S. Elliot starts: Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out across the sky …

Robert Frost advises: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood …

Paul Simon sang about a girl with diamonds in the soles of her shoes and a boy as empty as a pocket.

The Psalmist consoled with King James’s help: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …

Faulkner cautioned within a novel: …how words go straight up in a thin line, harmless, and how terribly doing goes along the earth, clinging to it …

And St. John states, with me possibly pulling it out of context: In the beginning was the Word …

And there stood Mr. Lincoln: Four score and seven years ago …

And good old Shakespeare has scattered poetic phrases throughout the English language.

And clearly I have missed too many words of women, but I keep this fragment by Annie Dillard close: The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand.

There is much in what is expressly contemporary poetry that seems to mostly speak to the confusion of our times – I find little meaning there - and I recommend not spending too much time in those pages. Older poets lose me as well. But there are also poets who have found their voice and can express their mind and reveal bits of the universe. I’m glad to read them.

And not all that is old and has lasted, and finally, not even all that is very good, will speak to you where you are. Never mind. But there are many good poets, living and dead who have produced poetry in books and who have laced it into writings by other names.

I have found that poetry is a crucial ingredient in human life and culture. You will want to read and hear some of its rhythm and rhyme and ponder its meaning. Poetry is what you get when words hum along with the harmonics of the universe. Sometimes truth and beauty cannot be expressed better.

And one last note. Many, many poems will not be great or enduring but are little more than words which call attention with a little flair to what you otherwise might have overlooked – like a glass of ice water when you’re thirsty. You will find their reading will be worth your time.

Here’s a little bit of poetry I wrote. At least I found some satisfaction in the writing.

Crossing Mass at 9^th

  Bert Haverkate-Ens

In the folds

of her dark green

sweater

lie hills and valleys

of sunlight and shadow,

each one a new horizon

across her form.

She walked ahead of me,

her face looking forward,

pale sneakers

marking the pavement

with disappearing steps.