Yet, poetry—along with the hunger for poetry—is all around us.
Poetry is in the hymns we sing. It is in the rules and rhythms of the games we play. It is in the songs we listen to and the jingles on the television that we can't get out of our heads. It is in the nursery rhymes we read to our children. It is in the movies we see. It is in the rituals of our mornings and the routines of our daily work. It is in the thanksgivings of the farmer's wife. It is in the lamentations of the broken. It is in the repeated prayers of the soul in need.
But to be a poet—to emerge from this sea of unseen poetry that constitutes life and to be carried forth by the lifeboat of a poem of one's own making—this is what these Afghani women risk death to do. The ancients understood. This is why they used the word that means "maker" to designate the poet. We who are created in the image of the Creator are, as Leland Ryken has written, "incorrigible makers."
So upon seeing Eve, Adam made a poem, the first words spoken by one human being to another:
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman,'
for she was taken out of man."
This, the first poem by the first man, accomplishes what it is the nature of all poetry to do: to use the power of words to unite and connect, to seek and find resemblances among differences and stitch them together with words. Connection is one of the deepest desires of the human condition. Poetry expresses and helps fulfill that desire. All the poetic devices we learned in school—rhyme, meter, alliteration, allusion, anaphora, metaphor, simile, paradox, and more—are the priests that preside over the wedding of one thing to another. The fruit of such union is meaning.
Poetry gives voice to this meaning that is birthed by the bonds of connectivity. Furthermore, the poet Adrienne Rich proclaims, "transfusions of poetic language can and do quite literally keep bodies and souls together." And, I would add, it can bear those souls and bodies to God, too.
The cross, too, is a poem. A crossbeam tethered to a pole. Feet and wrists nailed to wood, rhymed by the pierced side. Sins of man bonded to the Son of Man. From death, life.
What price would you pay for poetry? Ask the Afghani women. They know.
U.S. Air Force TSgt Laura K. Smith / ISAF / Flickr
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Comments
Debbie Harris
Beautifully written article. Now I am hoping Christianity Today will start to accept Christ centered poetry. :) Blessings!
Heather Munn
Roger McKinney, you should try Richard Wilbur's poetry. That's 20th century poetry it's possible you would like.
Hannah N.
The low status of poetry in the U.S. is indeed puzzling, when you consider its continued acclaim around the world in places like Afghanistan, Poland, Chile. I think it's linked to the broader distrust of "high" culture and anti-intellectualism in our democracy. Meanwhile, poetry slams, open mics, and writing workshops flourish and grow. People sense that poetry still has power. And something like the Favorite Poem Project, founded by former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, reveals that many Americans continue to treasure poetry in a deep way - http://www.favoritepoem.org. And as to poetry that doesn't rhyme and is occasionally obscure... have you read the Psalms lately?
Roger McKinney
Don't blame the public for disliking poetry. Academics and modern poets have done all in their power to make the public hate poetry. Modern poetry has no rhyme or rhythm and strives to be as obscure as possible. Afghan poetry tries to communicate; modern US poetry tries to obfuscate. I love poetry from the 19th century. I haven't read anything but silly limericks written in the 20th century that I would read.
Mary Mueller
Beautiful, poignant and a wonderful apologetic for poetry.
Mary Mueller
Beautiful, poignant, and an excellent apologetic for poetry.
Tim Fall
"For many of them, poetry is their only form of education." Poetry as a form of education? Powerful concept, and subversive to some. Then again, education often is. Cheers, Tim ( timfall.wordpress.com ) P.S. For those who practice their reverse snobbery by poopooing poetry, I bet they enjoy a good Shel Silverstein lyric when they hear it. "A Boy Named Sue", anyone?
Sheila Lagrand
Preach it! It seems we've forgotten the value of beauty, of wonder, of fresh representations of universal truths.
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