Poetry's Enduring Power

If I had a wish, there is one thing that would take precedence over all others. It would outrank, even, my desire to win the lotto, or to spend the night with Adrien Brody and a tub of KY. It would even rate above my fond wish to be a successful working writer.

You see, I'd love to have poetry make a comeback.

Once upon a time, poets were regarded as nothing less than prophets, and their work was heralded as unique, enlightened insights into the very nature of the human experience. Poets were widely-respected, many in the manner of nobility or celebrity, and the work they produced was both emotionally and spiritually lucrative.

But, alas, this is no longer the case. The vast majority of working poets today are forced to make poetry their "hobby", while slaving away at less-enriching jobs to make ends meet. As one of these poets, I am often amazed at how people are able to work 9-5, then go home and be receptive and compassionate enough to write something as sensitive, and fragile, as a poem. I struggle with this. It's rarely -- hardly ever, in fact -- that I am focused and open enough to create a poem after I roll in at the end of the workday. The bulk of my poetry is written on weekends, usually first-thing in the morning. These hours of silence, channeling a voice that echoes, are greatly anticipated throughout the week. When struck by something intensely in my Monday-Friday world, I have sometimes said to myself, "It's OK. You'll think about it this weekend when you sit down to write a poem."

For that's what poetry does for me. It allows me to think in a whole new way. It allows me to frame my thoughts with coherent, deliberate words. Poetry allows me to simply be, in a way that no one or no thing in my life can. It gets all the kinks out, from the crushingly sad to the soaring bliss, in a realistic, honest, original way.

In a contemporary American landscape clotted with reality television that is representative of anything but reality; in a land where the newspapers and all other media outlets are overlorded by the same few people and are unarguably selective about what they tell/show us; in a world where diversion reigns supreme (What's Britney up to this week? What skanky socialite has been arrested this time? What D-list actor is lunching at The Ivy this afternoon?). In a time and place that encompasses all of these, poetry is our last real bastion of truth.

Gone are the days when poets are revered and rewarded. But they are nonetheless important...even more so.

Just as I hope for a massive wave of love and compassion to wash over this country, I also hope for a return to the necessity and knowledge of poetry. I think the two go hand-in-hand. If I had any clout, I'd enlist Oprah's help. She's done some amazing things for literature and reading, bringing whole masses back to the bookstores and libraries. If Oprah took up the poetry cause, the results would be life-changing. She could even start with a show on how to read poetry, since I've found that most people don't even know how to read, and thus appreciate, a poem.

There are still good poets out there. I can name dozens, but you probably won't have heard of any of them. They don't get any media coverage, as they didn't go to an elite Manhattan nightclub last night, or recently bail out of rehab before their commitment was up.

In closing, here is one of my favorite poems....

"The Ponds"
by Mary Oliver

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.