The undeniable power of poetry

Come my friends, ‘tis not too late to seek a newer world, for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset. And though we are not that strength, which in old days moved heaven and earth, that which we are we are – one equal temper of heroic heart. Made weak by time and fate but strong in will… to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield…"

Thus was this passage from Alfred Lord Tennyson read by the Dead Poet’s Society in the classic movie of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert Sean Leonard. I think I was nine when I first saw this film and I instantly fell in love with it. First of all, I’ve loved poetry ever since I was old enough to read The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. I don’t know why, but I’ve always been attracted to poems. I loved reading them, I loved writing them, and I loved receiving them (though I’ve only received one in my entire life… I loved it!).

I appreciate the beauty of words magically woven into poems. I love all kinds of poetry – ballads, odes, elegies, lyrics, or sonnets. I like poems that rhyme and poems that don’t rhyme, haiku, diamante, free verse, and prose. I like how poems are beautiful yet concise. I like that they are able to stir up the same amount of strong emotions as a thousand-page novel but in only four stanzas. And most of all I like that poetry moves people. All good poems are written from the heart and I think that’s what I love about them most of all. Indeed I was a child when I fell in love with poetry and it’s been a lifelong affair. I believe Pablo Neruda put it best when he wrote: "It was at that age … poetry arrived in search of me… I don’t know how or when… but from a street I was summoned… and it touched me."

So you can imagine how moved I was when I first watched Robin Williams teach his class about the power of poetry, about stopping to smell the flowers and moving to your own beat. "Carpe Diem," I believe, was the motto. It was a lesson I cherished then and something I still remember now. It’s no secret I love the arts – whether it be writing, acting, or even just watching music, dance, film, or theater. I believe these things inspire people to live a beautiful life. I know, I must sound like a hippie, but it’s true. It’s so easy to find beauty and majesty in everything we do and we should all stop for a moment and enjoy it – even if it’s just the cool breeze blowing in the window.

This is something I’ve always believed in, but occasionally forget due to the hustle and bustle of daily life. Though I try to remind myself to enjoy every minute that passes, I sometimes get caught in the rush and find myself hurrying from one place to the next just trying to get things done. I’ve churned out columns some weeks without putting as much effort into the joy I experience writing them but more to simply try to catch the deadline. Which is sad because not everyone gets to do a job that is their passion and writing is definitely one of mine.

I was in Hong Kong with my family recently and on our flight home, an older, quite charming Irish gentleman took the seat next to me. He was reading one of my favorite books, The 100 Greatest Poems of All Time. I was astonished to find him underlining phrases and making notes in the margins. I admit it’s rare to find guys, especially older ones, who like poetry (on their own, mind you, and not just to impress some girl). But he was quite engrossed and I found myself telling him how much I loved that book as well. This sparked a very animated conversation about poetry. It turns out he wrote poetry as well and came from a family of writers. He even had a daughter who was about my age who wrote for an Irish newspaper. He told me he had actually already read the book back in 1996 but had made a note to himself to read it again in 2006 and make new notes and annotations to see how his opinions may have changed over the last decade.

It was indeed an interesting discussion and I remembered how much I loved reading poems and how I hadn’t done so in a very long time. So here are some of my favorite verses that have remained my favorites over the years. Short rhymes on heartbreak, on love, on life, and even on death. I hope they move you as much as they have moved me.

When it comes to heartbreak and struggling to move on I don’t believe there is another poem that can express the tragic sadness better than Pablo Neruda’s "Tonight I can write":

"I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain she makes me suffer

And these the last verses that I write for her."

As for love, real, heart-wrenching, can’t-eat-can’t-sleep love, the Bard still does it best with Sonnet 116:

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds amidst impediments.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

No, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken"

And Helen Steiner Rice simplifies how the entire world needs love with her stanza:

"The priceless gift of life is love,

For with the help of God above

Love can change the human race

And make this world a better place –

For love dissolves all hate and fear

And makes our vision bright and clear

So we can see and rise above

Our pettiness on wings of love"

There are also countless poems about how to live. Alfred Lord Tennyson’s stanza was only one of a vast number of rhymes that inspire people to live life to the fullest. Another is Henry David Thoreau in these few lines:

"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

To put to rout all that was not life, and not, when I came to die

Discover that I had not lived"

And it doesn’t end there. There are even more poems about reaching the end of your life. Poems about the final act of your grand play on Earth. One is from Dylan Thomas and is about going out with a bang:

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light"

Another, which I believe is a comforting memorial for death, comes from Mary Elizabeth Frye who wrote:

"Do not stand by my grave and weep;

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow

I am the diamond glints on snow…

… When you awaken in the morning hush

I am the swift uplifting rush…

… Do not stand by my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die."

Indeed, it is easy to see how one can easily be drawn into the beauty of poetry and the magical pull of words. It’s true, no matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. Why read poetry, some people ask? I believe Robin Williams’ character answered it best in the movie when he said: "We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for." In the end, poetry is all about life. I’d like to end with a quote from Archibald MacLeish who, in my opinion, best explains what a poem is…

"A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea —

A poem should not mean

But be."