Reading Poetry

As a Christian I acknowledge the importance of words. At God’s word life began (Genesis 1). Jesus is the Word made flesh; who came to dwell among us (John 1). And it is by words and the Word that God has chosen to reveal himself to us (Hebrews 1). Given the significance of words, I need to be considered in how I read. In last week’s blog I looked at the ethics of reading and pondered how reading poetry may help us to read. In this post I want to further that discussion.

How do you approach reading a poem? If, for example, I were to ask you to read Anne Bradstreet’s ‘To My Dear and Loving Husband’,

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,

That when we live no more, we may live ever.[1]

How did you go? What were the first things you noticed about it? When you read it, what did you do? Did you skim through it quickly, in order to get back to the prose? Did you read it slowly in your head? Did you read it aloud? How many times did you read it?

There is so much that could be written about the reading of poetry that this blog could veer towards the epic! So, I’m going to focus on the two aspects which together make poetry distinct (at least in my mind) from prose, and consider how thinking about reading in terms of these things will shape how we approach reading poetry.

First, as best you can read poetry aloud. As indicated in the previous blog there is something about poetry’s visual and aural character that makes it distinct, that makes it poetry. Even better than reading poetry aloud yourself is to listen to poets read their own (or others’) poetry, either online or at a poetry reading. I still get a shiver down my spine thinking about hearing David Malouf read his poetry only metres from where I sat in a courtyard café on a humid November evening, or W B Yeats’ voice come crackling out of the past as I listened to a recording on YouTube of ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’. Yeats, who notoriously declared: “It gave me a devil of a lot of trouble to get into verse the poems I am going to read, and that is why I will not read them as if they were prose.”,[2] is not wrong in wishing his verse being read as that: verse!

Aside from YouTube there are many sites on the internet which allow you to listen (for free) to writers reading their own or others’ work. A great one is The Poetry Archive. [3]

Secondly, part of poetry’s appeal is that it is both aural and visual. We see the patterns on the page made by the line breaks, and often this plays a role in our understanding of the poem. Indeed it is the visual that helps indicate how we are to read the poem (the aural aspect). An example of this is the work of William Carlos Williams, who explored the way line breaks can impact the syntax and therefore the meaning of the poem. We can see this in one of his most famous imagist poems, ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’.[4]

However, the visual can be more than just a way of indicating rhythm and exploring syntax. I have been exploring ‘The Song of the Sea’ in Exodus 15 in preparation to lead a Bible Study. As it is written in the Torah scroll it has a visual pattern that is said to represent the two walls of the Red Sea, as parted by God, and the Israelites walking safely down the middle.[5] Unfortunately for us this is lost in translation. Despite this the poem is still rendered as poetry in our different versions, given line breaks (although they are of varying length), which indicates to us that it is different to the rest of the Exodus narrative. This difference is first seen and then heard as we read. The significance, for the Israelites and for us, of God’s mighty hand rescuing them from out of the deluge is still heard, even if we don’t have the same visual cue as if we were reading it in the Hebrew.

There are many other features that I could discuss at length in terms of how to read poetry. (And I do hope you will forgive me if the ones I have chosen seem obvious- they are, but I’ve seen postgraduate students of English Literature get these wrong!) However, I think these are the two which, when dealt with, can bring about the greatest change in terms of our understanding and enjoyment of poetry.

I know I hinted that I would provide you with an answer to what to read in the previous blog. However, there are just too many great poets out there to explore that I couldn’t be so prescriptive. So far I have indicated at least four poets from three different countries and spanning almost five centuries in this blog post- so, there’s a beginning for you.

A final word on how we read poetry. One of the ways that I have personally found helpful in approaching reading poetry has been to consider how poets see their own writing. Ars poetica (Latin, “the art of poetry”) is a common theme in poetry, and it is interesting to trace through the different ideas about poetry that different poets have made over time (the term goes all the way back to Horace). In reading through these poems you can look for clues in what the poet says about their own craft as an indication of how to read their poetry. Here are some selected verses from two Ars Poetica written in the last century that will hopefully whet your appetite for reading poetry:

The last verse of Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish,

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean   

But be.[6]

And some verses from Ars Poetica?

By Czeslaw Milosz

In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:   

a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,   

so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out   

and stood in the light, lashing his tail.   

(…)There was a time when only wise books were read,   

helping us to bear our pain and misery.   

This, after all, is not quite the same   

as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.   

And yet the world is different from what it seems to be   

and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.

People therefore preserve silent integrity,   

thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.   

The purpose of poetry is to remind us   

how difficult it is to remain just one person,   

for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,   

and invisible guests come in and out at will.

What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry,   

as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,   

under unbearable duress and only with the hope   

that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.[7]

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[1] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/poem/172962

[2] W B Yeats Radio Recording, 1932.

[3] http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do

[4] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/178804#poem

[5] Jonathon L. Friedmann, Music in the Hebrew Bible: Understanding References in the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim (McFarland: 2013).

[6] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/63710

[7] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179563

Poetry and Reading

I’ve started writing this blog in my head many times and at least three times on paper. I really want to discuss two things in this blog. Two interconnected things. I want to discuss poetry and I want to consider the ethics of reading. However, I’m aware that for most readers at least one and perhaps both topics are possibly way down the list of things you would want to read about. I am worried that people are wondering if poetry even has a place on this blog. Whether we can place poetry alongside our reading of Christian books and the occasional novel. It is, after all, a book club. I considered different openings that would engage the reader, capture you with the vision of this blog, but then I thought that I should just say it.

Well, dear reader, this is what I want to say.

I think reading poetry helps us to become better readers.

Now, let me explain what I mean.

As an English teacher these topics aren’t especially new. Anecdotally, it has been the students who understand (and, dare I say it? enjoy) poetry who happen to also be the students who show greater ability in reading overall. However, it wasn’t until last year, having read Reinke’s Lit! and doing some research into ethics in literature, that I became passionately convinced of the benefits (aside from the obvious pleasure) of reading poetry.

Our earliest experiences of language are often poetic. Before we can even understand the meaning, we hear the rhythm of language. Before we can read, we see the shape of the words on a page. So, why do adults often express an unwillingness to read (hear/see) poetry? Certainly it is honoured at important occasions; brought out like fine china as a sign of the significance of the event. But why do we shy away from reading it like we would a novel or a newspaper? Is it that it is too abstract, or that often, in the modern lyric form, there is no (or, at least, no discernable) narrative? Or, are we embarrassed, thinking that poetry is associated with the soft and the romantic?

Sir Philip Sidney, a sixteenth century soldier, courtier, and poet, wrote of poetry in his famous An Apology for Poetry, “Poesy therefore is an act of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in his word mimesis, that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth- to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture- with this end, to teach and delight.”[1]  Sidney argued that poetry was a way of not only teaching virtue (gnosis), but also as a way of moving people to live virtuous lives (praxis). [2]

While it would be an obvious disagreement to make with Sidney that all poetry leads us not only to an understanding of virtue but also to virtuous lives, there is some merit in his idea that it is in mimesis that we can come to reflect on the world around us, on the human condition. Certainly, this idea is often one that is put forward as part of an argument regarding the value of reading novels! Furthermore, as I have hinted at, there is further value in the reading which poems demand.

So often we read quickly: skimming through an article, flicking pages in a novel. We come to texts with our own agendas, and read through that lens. We may not know much of the author’s context, or assume that we are their intended audience. However, is this way of reading ethical? While we will often speak of the wisdom (or virtue) of reading in terms of the content of the text, there is less discussion of the ethics of how we read. As one critic has suggested,

Texts demand ethical responses from their readers in part because saying always has an ethical dimension and because we are our values, and we never take a moral holiday from our values. We can no more ignore the ethical implications of what we read than we can ignore the ethical implications of life. But how does one discuss how one reads ethically?[3]

While this quote was specifically aimed at a consideration of our reading of novels, it can be applied to a consideration of all our reading habits.

Reading poetry demands that we slow down, read and re-read, even research to discover more about the poet, their time and their audience. Reading poetry requires an ethical consideration of how we read. We see and hear the poem, often before we understand it; however, seeing and hearing are integral to our understanding of it. We don’t read poetry in the same way we read an article or a novel. It’s a difference we are often ready to acknowledge, and is often why we don’t read poetry.

The theme of this year’s EQUIP Conference is ‘Wise’, with talks on 1 Corinthians 1-4. Christ, the incarnate God, Word made flesh, the wisdom of God. As Christians, there is wisdom and virtue in considering how we read. I want to encourage you to practise this by reading poetry (you might even find you like it).

…

So, I guess you want to know what poems to read?

You’ll just have to wait until next week.

In the meantime why don’t you ask a family member or friend what their favourite poem is (or read some of your favourites)?

Here’s a great site to get you started: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/browse/

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[1] Sir Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (or The Defence of Poesy), (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1965), 86, ln. 17-20.

[2] “…as virtue is the most excellent resting place for all worldly learning to make his end of, so Poetry, being the most familiar to teach it, and most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent work is the most excellent workman.” Sidney, Apology, 96, ln. 41-44.

[3] Daniel R. Schwarz, ‘A Humanistic Ethics of Reading’, from ed. Davis and Womack Mapping the Ethical Turn (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001), 5.