Poetry

I have been a poet most of my life. Not a famous one, nor perhaps even a very good one. I suppose that is determined by the audience. Poetry means different things to different people. I have found that many times when people say that they don't like or understand poetry, what they mean is that they have been taught that it is supposed to be too obscure, even highbrow, for regular folks.

I cut my teeth on the Romantic poets Shelley and Keats. At the age of fourteen or so I imagined that my suffering equaled theirs. I knew loneliness and despair. Or so I thought. I studied the poems to find their "real" or "correct" meanings. Everything was supposed to be a metaphor. In fact, recently I saw a movie in which one actor explained with authority to another that in poetry everything means something else. No wonder people say that they don't like poetry, having been taught that they are getting it wrong if they don't arrive at the same meaning the poet had intended.

I have also read Shakespeare all my life. To understand what he is saying takes study and persistence. The language is archaic, the references obscure to twenty-first century readers, and the humor many times is lost on us. Should we measure our understanding of poetry against Shakespeare's plays and poetry? I am quite sure that some might think that. But I don't. In fact my feeling about the whole subject of poetry borders on the heretical.

I should explain. I don't believe that Shakespeare was trying to be obscure. He was a business man, writing for a living. His audience understood his language, his jokes, his references. Of course he could turn a phrase most wonderfully. His sonnets are beautiful and his plays lyrical. But when reading Shakespeare, footnotes are a reader's best friend.

Watch a movie like Emma Thompson's "Much Ado About Nothing" (based on Shakespeare's play of the same name) or read Sense and Sensibility, or Pride and Prejudice. You will find a more precise version of English than most of us speak today, as well as a heightened sense of propriety and civility. Many references to polite society are beyond our understanding because society has changed so much.

You are probably thinking, "Well, you have made my point! How can I enjoy something in a language that I don't speak? I might as well be reading French or Chinese!" And you are right. In the spirit of transparency I have to admit that I read English, Spanish, French, and a little Portuguese and Italian. But I don't read Chinese, so we are in the same boat.

We may be up the creek, but not without a paddle.

Just as people in Shakespeare's time understood his version of English, we understand ours. And our poetry is written in modern English.

There are many songs with lyrics which are fine poetry. Art Simon is a great example with "The Boxer" and "A Most Peculiar Man." One of my favorite Beatles' songs is "Eleanor Rigby" where Eleanor leaves her face in a jar by the door, leading us to wonder whether she is leaving her private (lonely) face in the jar as she goes out, or whether she is leaving her public (happy) face in the jar as she comes in. That image is one that we can all feel. Poetry makes us relive feelings that we have had, fears and joys that we understand by experience.

Poetry is not highbrow. It is human. The trick is to find the poetry that you like because it touches you. I recently read all of Emily Dickinson's poems. I wouldn't recommend it. Out of the hundreds of poems that I read, I found about twenty that moved me profoundly. Pieces of post-it notes mark the pages and I read them often. In one poem she asks, "I am nobody. Are you nobody too?" Every human being knows the feeling of being nobody at one time or another. That is real poetry. Simple and moving.

Those of you who have read my poetry, except for my earliest work, know that I keep it simple. I don't want the reader to have to look anything up, or figure anything out. I want the reader to bring his or her life experience. I will do the same. And the poem will mean what it means to the reader, not to me. It doesn't matter what I meant. The creative experience is what the reader makes of the poem. What the reader sees and feels.

What was the last song that brought a tear to your eye? When did a movie last put a lump in your throat? Poetry can also do that for you. In the impersonal world of Facebook, Twitter, and the evening news we all need something to remind us that we are feeling and caring human beings.