Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Why Do We Like the Poems We Like?

Why Do We Like the Poems We Like?

In grade-school, I encountered the poems customarily encountered by my generation: Emerson’s Concord hymn, Frost’s “Stopping By Woods” (which we had to memorize), Kilmer’s “Trees,” and parts of Hiawatha. There was a mixture of the patriotic, the safe, the conventional, and the pleasing (Hiawatha is fun to listen to, especially for children).

In high school, things got more complicated, but not much. English teachers preferred short stories (“Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge”), novels (Lord of the Flies), and plays (Romeo and Juliet; Julius Caesar). When I got to college, I finally encountered poems that bowled me over, such as Randall Jarrell’s “Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” and Karl Shapiro’s “Auto Wreck.” I liked these poems because they surprised me. In a way, they didn’t give me a choice. They insisted that I like them. They presented images of and provided a new language for war, death, and terrible commonplaces like car-wrecks; they did things with poetry I didn’t know, until then, could be done.

I think we pretend to or agree to like some poems because we are supposed to. I think we like others because they remind us of a certain time in life or a certain moment; they help mark a memory. And I think we like others because, when we read them, they strike quickly, they pierce, and they satisfy by surprising. I also believe poetry pierces in ways that novels and plays can’t—even though novels and plays are equally powerful, in their own ways. Nowadays, people—even people who study literature, I might add—don’t like poetry, fear or dread poetry, or otherwise just avoid it. But that’s a different question, one I might take up later.

For now I’ll end by offering this opinion: the poet whose opus is most full of piercing surprises is Emily Dickinson, who may be the most misunderstood or mis-characterized poet ever. I still cherish her wonderfully observed poem, [“A Narrow Fellow in the Grass”].

1 comment:

Wild Bill said...

I like A. E. Housman so much because he is a master carpenter of verse: no gaps; no misalignments; not a single nail bent or unset. I cannot imagine a word that I should change without diminishing what he, like one of Longfellow's Greek builders, constructed.

By contrast, I like Robinson Jeffers [when I do] because he conveys the majestic, serene power of waves and rocks -- champions that have carried on their agons for eons. Their contests shape the world, yet crags take body blows and surf absorbs boulders without even a muffled grunt. Rocky Balboa grunts. George Chuvalo yields. But oceans and continents keep coming at one another while Robinson Jeffers reports the fight and hawks occupy ringside seats. If being a Druid did not look like it would cut into my television, Jeffers might mke me a Druid.

I do not reconcile Jeffers and Housman. Rather, I delight that they show me what humans might be. Those reclusive men, like the Belle of Amherst, offer misanthropes hope that their lives might prove endurable.