Space for Poetry
Last night I read poetry for the first time in years. I started with John Donne but found it hard going, so opted instead for Keats (an old favourite of mine from my younger, more consumptive years). This may seem a strange thing to announce on a blog, but it feels pretty noteworthy to me. Of course, if you’re anything like the 99.9% of people in this country, you haven’t read a poem since high school and would call the police if someone tried to foist one on you.
Poetry is clinically dead, only kept alive by the complex machinery of charitable grants and false consciousness. And yet it had such a glorious past: it was the place where wits and lovers could prove their worth, an aristocratic activity that was judged on talent, allowing misshapen dwarves like Alexander Pope the same laurels as noblemen like the clubfooted Lord Byron. Now the laurels have crumbled to nothing. As I said in this slightly harsh piece on ex-poet Penny Broadhurst, the well of poetry has been drying out and getting more stagnant. No one has the time, the level of concentration, or the space to think anymore, our brains have been changed by Facebook and Google to deal in the bits and bites of information, not the kisses and caresses of poetry.
It could be psychosomatic, but ever since I stopped reading mindless football gossip and quick fix RSS feeds my ability to focus has increased immeasurably. Poetry is anything but a quick fix: you need to read the poems three times (at least once out loud) to understand what the hell is going on; you have to look up words to see how ambiguity can enrich meaning; you even need to stop asking yourself what is the point. It is an immersive experience and one that I would recommend to all.