“Poetry is…Some  Reflections”

Back in March 2020 a Poetry Group was established at St Marys Church as part of our expanding Arts Development programme, under Revd Sarah Bourne’s  leadership.

Unfortunately, this group has not able to meet due to the pandemic, so we started publishing regular Poetry Blogs.  These began  in June 2020, and, with this one, have reached no 21! They have finally come of age!

As this Blog is “Poetry is… Some Reflections”, it seems appropriate to ask that fundamental question; what is poetry?  And hope to provide some answers.

What is poetry

Turning to a Collins Dictionary and Britannica, I am informed that it is literature in metrical form; the art or craft of writing verse, poetic qualities, spirit or feeling in anything and anything resembling poetry in rhythm or beauty. Or it is a type of literature, or artistic writing, that attempts to stir a reader’s imagination or emotions.  The poet does this by carefully choosing and arranging language for its meaning, sound and rhythm.

So, poetry is the writing of poems, and we should not forget that there are other terms we may use in place of poem - verse, rhyme, ode, perhaps even lyric or ballad.

 And as Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in “ A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays”:

• “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”

Poetry is one of the three primary forms of literature,  the others being drama and prose.

Within each of these forms  we may experience various moods: tragedy, comedy or humour, fact, fiction, or legend etc. and there are many overlaps of these three. For example, drama may also embrace poetry as is the case with Shakespeare. And if we think about opera or the musical, are not we listening to poems set to music? And then in church, hymns are surely poems in a musical setting.  

But above all poetry should touch our emotions in some way. It is the product of someone else’s imagination, and it is read, heard or interpreted in our imagination.

And just looking back over some previous Blogs we are able to see how words, through their poetic form, enable us to draw  something more than just the words from poetry. The way the words are placed provides a sense of music and movement.

The emotion of loss and grief

In Poetry Blog 20 ( A Pastoral Selection), I mentioned Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

And these words and rhythm surely pick up that sense of the loss of a loved one for us. Even the curfew bell which is the last bell to remind people in medieval times to back up their home fires, provides a sense of loss. The slow, somewhat sad and weary rhythm underpins the author’s expression of the loss of a friend, which is why it was most likely written.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 

         The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea, 

The plowman homeward plods his weary way, 

         And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

Now fades the glimm’ring landscape on the sight, 

         And all the air a solemn stillness holds, 

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 

         And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds; 

The consequences of inebriation

In Blog 17, The Rolling English Road  by G K Chesterton, with their long lines (14 syllables) gave  us through both words and rhythm that idea that someone had just had a bit too much to drink and couldn’t walk in a straight line!!  How descriptive is 'a reeling road, a rolling road that ambles round the shire'! The straightness of the roads was one fact but the strength of our character is another as the poem later warns of the ultimate consequences of too much drink!

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,  

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.  

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,  

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;  

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread 

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head

The images of Nature 

In Blog 5, Joyce Kilmer’s short lyrical poem Trees, simply conjures up for us the  feel of a forest or woodland. And when we add music to that it becomes even more special. I have included the musical version again here. The words are so simple but also so profound and you really feel you are in the wood.

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

The Paul Robeson Version was given  a musical setting by Oscar Rasbach, and I encourage you to listen to this as an interpretation of the poem, for me it is quite magical.

The link is as follows

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwizwIXwsa7sAhVzsXEKHe7ZBfAQyCkwAHoECA8QAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvOHekLZD5i4&usg=AOvVaw1vx4GNvz7oWvOYwyuRmSLY

Words, their sounds and meter to indicate movement (Onomatopoeia)

Classically 'tick tock' are two words which do not need further description.

In the poem How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, Robert Browning, describes a journey on horseback and as you read it at a good pace, you feel like you are on horseback yourself.

It is a  "dramatic romance", told in the  first-person narrative, in  a breathless galloping meter, by one of three riders; the midnight errand is urgent—"the news which alone could save Aix from her fate"—but the nature of that good news is never revealed, and somehow that doesn’t matter. In fact, it was not written about good news but for the sake of the journey! It is a purely Imaginary incident. 

I have just included 4 verses here,

I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; 

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; 

‘Good speed!'’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; 

‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through; 

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, 

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

II  Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace 

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place; 

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight, 

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right, 

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit, 

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

IX Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, 

Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, 

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, 

Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; 

Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, 

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 

X And all I remember is - friends flocking round 

As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;

and no voice but was praising this Roland of mine, 

As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine, 

Which (the burgesses voted by common consent) 

Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.

Our spirituality - Poems as Hymns

 And finally let me look briefly at the well-known hymn written by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady in the 17^th century, with music by Hugo Wilson.

“As pants the hart for cooling streams

  When heated in the chase,

So longs my soul, O God, for Thee,

  And Thy refreshing grace”

This is pure poetry which aligns the thirst of a deer being hunted in a parallel to us going through life’s race with a thirst for God and through to the end.

The words alone may be enough, but add the music and it takes us deeper.

 And this is a paraphrase of Psalm 42 (NKJV)

 As the deer pants for the water brooks

So pants my soul for You, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

And psalms themselves are great poetry.

Some Final Thoughts

There are so many different kinds of poetry, short, long, humorous, sad etc., but it helps us in many ways, for it is rhythmic, soothing and soul-stirring goodness.

 Let me sketch in a few ideas of how it may be of benefit.

 It can be good for your brain for as we listen or read the words and their rhythm stimulates our senses and touches our emotions. It is not dissimilar from music perhaps. It can also boost memory and encourage us to think about the variety of meanings words may have.

 It allows you to escape into areas you may not have imagined, it has the capacity to transport you beyond where you are.

 It may slow us down at times when we are stressed or boost your mood when you need that.

 It can broaden both our vocabulary and cultural appreciation.

 It can provide support when we are lonely or depressed.

 Remembering that the poem is the imaginative and creative output of someone else, similarly we need to use our imagination when we read a poem… but don’t overthink it.

So, if I were to write

A poem it would be.

For my imagination

Is really part of me.

Hopefully this may encourage you to go and read some more, and  let  your  imagination take flight … and above all enjoy!

Contributed by Roger Verrall, July 19^th 2021

Sources

Collins English Dictionary, Third Edition, Harper Collins Publishers, Glasgow, 1991

Britannica.com

The New Oxford Book of English Verse, Chosen & Edited by Helen Gardner, OUP Oxford 1972/ Reprint 1987

Trees by Joyce Kilmer First published  in” Poetry: A Magazine of Verse ” Volume II, No 5, August 1913

Ancient and Modern -  Hymns Ancient and Modern, London 2013Odern

En.wikisource.org