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My least favourite subject at school was maths. In a way I was lucky; I never had to ask, ‘what is the point of this? Why do I have to learn about arithmetic and fractions and square roots?’ I could see it was all practical stuff and that I needed to know a lot of it. Actually, I use maths every day and I am particularly grateful that I was made to learn times tables because they are so useful!
But for students who don’t like English, and poetry in particular, it may seem harder to answer the questions, ‘what is the point of poetry? Why do I have to study these poems? How will this ever help me in the future?’
Help is at hand.
I have many, many answers to the above questions so today I am dealing with what is the point of poetry. This is, in fact, a question that I asked myself often while I was studying English at Cambridge University. I knew I loved what I was doing but I wasn’t sure whether it had a valuable purpose. Well, that was a long time ago and now I am sure that poetry is incredibly important. It’s not a fun time-waster for geeks but is actually a vital part of the human experience.
Here we go.
- Connection. I think I can comfortably say that no poet, ever, wrote a poem with the intention that it would be studied in school. Poets don’t want their poetry to be sweated over and resented. Mostly, they write to communicate, to reach other human beings. Great poets are still achieving this many years after their deaths.
- Ideas. Poetry can communicate ideas more economically and with more brilliance than any other type of writing. Metaphor, in particular, can show us a complex idea, or ‘thought picture’ (or in the words of Homer Simpson, ‘a headache with pictures’) graphically and efficiently. I am thinking in particular of the wonderful metaphor in William Blake’s London (in the AQA Power and Conflict anthology), ‘mind-forged manacles.’ I find that many students need a little guidance understanding this metaphor, especially as ‘manacle’ is no longer a common word and many young people will not know what a forge is, but after this they always appreciate the way Blake has been able to describe a complex idea in three words.
- Slowing down. I said it again. You can’t read poetry in a rush. That’s not what poetry is for. When we take the time to read slowly, read more than once, ponder, read again, ask others what they think, come back to the poem next week, next year or after decades, we weave a steadier, more contemplative pace into our lives. Human beings are not meant to live at top speed, trying to cram as much productivity into each day as we can. We are also meant to sit, think, feel, use our imagination and allow ourselves to be shifted from one perspective to another.
- Looking at things in a different way. Speaking of perspective, poetry, like other forms of art, invites us to see things from the poet’s point of view. That may be very different from our own. We may not agree with it, but there is nothing wrong with examining it. In fact, there is everything right with examining it. The more we are able to see different perspectives, the wiser we become.
- Playing with language. Play is not a trivial thing and it is certainly not just for children. When we play, we try different things, without needing to be certain they will work. Things that no-one has done before. We do things for the sheer pleasure of doing them, rather than the end result. Language is a living, always changing system and needs to be stretched and challenged. Play is also a type of connection. We say to others, ‘look what I did! How cool is that?’ and those people may share our surprise or delight.
- Commenting on the state of things. ‘The state of things’ may be politics, the environment, society, of the inexplicable mystery of existence. Think of war poetry. Before Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and the like, poets exposed the reality of war and lamented its futility. Before there were war films, there were war poems. Today, poets comment on politics, injustice, prejudice.
- Shared humanity. In a way we are back to connection. When we read a poem about despair, anger, fear, insecurity, loss, or any of a thousand human experiences or emotions, we know we are not alone. Poets are able to articulate their experience and that can help us put a name to our own. When we say, ‘yes, I have felt like that,’ our shared experience can soothe, reassure and encourage us.
You might say that other forms of art, such as painting, music or dance, share these attributes. I would wholeheartedly agree with you. Poets paint with words. Every form of art has its place and is a vital aspect of society. Imagine life without people who take time to express ideas, protest, play, or reach out using their chosen medium. Imagine a society which could not offer the opportunity to be a part of these art forms.
Look out for a future post in which I consider how studying poetry can help us in later life. An ambitious proposal, perhaps. We’ll see.
