“Poetry a Language for the Chosen Few”

The finesse of prose one can learn. One can learn by reading, by studying. Poetry, on the other hand, is like a foreign language; if you speak it, it is ever so self-evident. Unlike a foreign language, however, no matter what you do, there is no way to learn poetry’s mysteries; you either understand it or don’t and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. And it has little to do with education, for I have seen those hardly educated understand poems at will.

I say this because often I have been sent, or been referred to, poems by friends. Their enthusiasm is enchanting. I would look at the page, or screen, and, the lettering would be, invariably, like Greek. Worse, I would feel like a first-day student at an exam for advanced learners. The letters would swim in my head, symbols would drown. I could stare for centuries, and no good would come of it.

Welcome, then, to the world of poetry.

I am certainly not alone.

The great Czech writer Milan Kundera quotes the answer of another great Czech writer, Karel Capek, when asked why he—Capek--doesn’t write poetry: “Because I loathe talking about myself.” And yet, elsewhere, writes Kundera: “1857: the greatest year of the century. Les Fleurs du mal: lyric poetry discovers its rightful territory, its essence. Madame Bovary: for the first time, a novel is ready to take on the highest requirements of poetry (the determination to ‘seek beauty above all’; the importance of each particular word; the intense melody of the text; the imperative of originality applied to every detail). From 1857 on, the history of the novel will be that of the ‘novel become poetry.’ But to take on the requirements of poetry is quite another thing from lyricizing the novel (forgoing its essential irony, turning away from the outside world, transforming the novel into personal confession, weighing it down with ornament). The greatest of the ‘novelists become poets’ are violently anti-lyrical: Flaubert, Joyce, Kafka, Gombrowicz. Novel=antilyrical poetry.”

I sense ambivalence above. I sense the longing to find common ground. But is there a common ground? Again, Kundera quotes the Czech poet Jan Skacel:

“Poets don’t invent poems
The poem is somewhere
It’s been there for a long time
The poet merely discovers it.”

Of course, that could be oversimplifying, demeaning to the poet; the selfsame could be same of a novelist, a writer, I suppose.

Still, I maintain my point.

Baudelaire:

“Sois sage, o ma Douleur, et tiens-toi plus tranquille.
Tu reclamais le Soir; il descend; le voila:
Une atmosphere obscure envelope la ville,
Aux uns portant la paix, aux autres le souci.”

What is Baudelaire saying? Who can say, but those in the know? It may as well be a grocery list, as far as I’m concerned.

I see Dr Bennet, The Naked Sunfish poet laureate, sitting at his desk, seeking that corner of his own to be able to create. It is a sentiment I, like any writer, entirely share. But I ask him: help me, and those like me. Show me the light. And yet, I know all too well. Poetry, like Ancient Greek, is a language spoken for the chosen few.

Copyright David G. Hochman 2005