Is Poetry as vital to life as food? Blog 121

I believe so....... controversial maybe, and maybe not a question we spend much time thinking about. Plainly you can't eat the complete works of TS Elliot or Sylvia Plath and it won't do your digestion much good if you try. But I'm serious when I ask this question. I guess for me food is indeed the poetry of the body and poetry the food of the soul. 

Why am I asking this question today? Well it has drawn my attention through a curious trend I have noticed for as long as Facebook has been around. That is - the posting by people every day of some little quote or 'words of wisdom' on their status page. These words most often get the most 'likes' from others and are shared with friends and family, so often the very same ones come tumbling onto my page on the same day.They simply connect with us in some mysterious way. There are no explanations usually as to why that particular poem or quote has spoken to the sender, but you can bet your life its because it resonates with something touching them right then. Some of them are pretentious twaddle of course, thin reproductions of some earlier fine words regurgitated through a self-help manual or management training course. And you can spot them easily, even if underneath the jargon they do in fact carry a truth. 


In spite of ourselves no marking-rite-of-passage is worth its salt without good food and poetry.They sustain us mind and body both. For weddings, funerals, christenings and birthdays we reach for a book of poetry or google 'quotes' to find words to travel us through the landscape of that moment. You don't even have to have ever read a book to find your way to a catalogue of suitably appropriate poems and quotes from writers. Indeed there are many sites on the internet that can give you instantaneous access to words that say what you want to, and which you think do it more eloquently than you can. There is a site I just googled called Poems for Every Occasion 

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/200. Its great - does the work for us, and has as many categories to choose from as an online shop - fit for every conceivable occasion. And lots of them are wonderful of course.

My guess is that we do this because we are all too often shy of our own words, suspecting that we can only generate derivative drivel, and this lack of confidence in our own metaphors and images means we reach for the first book or website we can find, as if by definition those will contain greater meaning than our own. But that's a debate for another time. 

Poetry is a portal to the soul. Whether through Shakespeare or the Bible, Pam Eyres or ee Cummings, there is something for all of us. One such piece of writing that touches me and is a mantra that supports me through tough times is indeed the St James Bible's version of Corinthians 13, well known even amongst the most atheist of us as it is read frequently at weddings. 

Regardless of whether we have a faith or not - the words sing off the page with such resonance that they cannot but fail but to pierce the heart. 

 Corinthians 13

1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

² And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

³ And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

⁴ Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

⁵ Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

⁶ Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

⁷ Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

⁸ Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

⁹ For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

¹⁰ But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

¹¹ When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

¹² For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

¹³ And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

That's it for today - have a good one - maybe share a cake and drink a coffee with a good friend, post a favourite quote, share a problem, ask a question, maybe stay up with an owl -  if you are a lark you might learn something from her -  but above all - enjoy!