By Tabitha Bozeman
April is one of my favorite months because it is Poetry Month. This is the month I enjoy revisiting favorite poems, discovering new-to-me poets, and pondering exactly what makes poetry poetry. Many writers and readers have tried to define poetry. My favorite classic definition is from Wordsworth who said poetry is “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Rita Dove said, “Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.” Frost said it is “what gets lost in translation.” Many other descriptions of it include the emotions, peace, and stillness poetry both needs to be created and can gift to readers.
However, finding a moment of stillness and quiet is a tall order most of the time in today’s world. Tranquility? Even more elusive. The internet defines tranquility as “a state of peace, calm, and quiet, characterized by the absence of noise, stress, agitation, or disturbance.” In this noisy, busy, frenetic world where we often do not have 5 minutes of waking time to ourselves, is it even realistic to ask people to write or read poetry? Is poetry still relevant today?
Ethan Hawke recorded a video a few years ago, describing when people need art like poetry, saying that when we experience the huge emotions of the human experience, when we are broken open, at that moment art becomes not just a luxury but a necessity. In another place, Wordsworth describes poetry as the “spontaneous outflow of powerful feelings.” Poetry as both a container for emotion and as a way to process emotion seems to be a fairly consistent characteristic of how many define it. However, actually reading poetry can feel inaccessible and unnecessary for many readers because it often feels unfamiliar and can require turning down the noise around us and in our minds to really process what we are reading. This can feel daunting in the midst of our busyness. However, T.S. Eliot reminds us that “poetry can communicate before it is understood.” Much like a song that gets stuck in your head, lines of poetry can find their way back into your mind when you least expect it, and many times when you most need them.
As much as I appreciate Wordsworth’s definition of poetry, I think it is misleading to assume tranquility must come before poetry. Instead, I think poetry is a way to create and nurture tranquility in our daily lives. Poetry is sometimes a snapshot of a moment, an emotion, an experience. It can be many stanzas, or only a couple of lines. A phrase might be all it takes to slow us down long enough to more fully consider a moment before it passes. Yes, sometimes we can only write and think clearly about something after some time has passed. After all, hindsight can be 20/20. But, other times it is the act of writing, choosing the best word, crafting the image that forces us to breathe, that creates a moment of tranquility. Maybe tranquility is more than just the absence of noise and stress. Maybe it is also the presence of meaning. If so, the poetry is a necessary component of and tool for creating our own little pockets of tranquility and peace in this crazy world. Creativity, tranquility, peace, hope–these things are needed more than ever, even if we can’t come to a full stop very often.
For Emily Dickinson, “dwell[ing] in possibility” was one of the best parts of poetry, and the most hopeful, so I will leave you with this piece that has always been a favorite of mine: “Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all -And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard -And sore must be the storm -That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm -I’ve heard it in the chillest land -And on the strangest Sea -Yet – never – in Extremity, It asked a crumb – of me.”
This month, I encourage you to google some poetry. See if you can discover a snippet of verse that sticks with you. Find a stanza that describes a feeling you’ve never put into words. Read a poem that fills you with emotion. Poetry can create pauses in our lives and invite us to entertain possibilities and hope.
