When was the first time you encountered poetry? Perhaps it was within the realms of the classroom. Laboriously studying whether Sonnet 29 was written in iambic pentameter, tediously counting foot after foot. Perhaps you felt as if you never quite got the right end of the stick, believing that Blake’s poem really was about an actual ‘tyger tyger burning bright.’ Possibly, like many students, you concluded that poetry is simply boring, old fashioned and over the top.
Yet, when I hear these sorts of confessions, my heart begins to sink. Poetry yields so much more power than the dogmatic teachings we learn at school of rhythm, rhyme, and metre. It is a great bundle of words and emotions that we carry with us throughout our lives. In my opinion it is the most accessible form of literature, one that can deliver us peace in times of need.
For example, poetic wisdom often comforts me when in desperation. Emily Dickinson’s declaration “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” reminds me of the human capacity to not give up. Tennyson’s reassurance “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” also carries me through heartbreak and grief.
I believe the most important part of poetry is its ability to put a plaster over our spiritual wounds, guiding our lives through uncertainty. One of the best poetry anthologies for this is The Poetry Pharmacy curated by William Sieghart. This collection applies the idea that language and lyric is the medicine that soothes the ailments of the human condition. For instance, Sieghart provides a poetic cure for grief, heartbreak and loneliness – selecting a well-loved poem for each that offers some words of wisdom. As Stephen Fry writes on the collection, “Here is balm for the soul, fire for the belly, an arm around the lonely shoulder.”
My favourite poem from this book, and one I often share with friends, is Sieghart’s antidote to insecurity, Maya Angelou’s poem Phenomenal Woman. This poem really reaches into the crux of what it means to be unashamedly a woman and the notion that we don’t have to be perfect.
Perhaps if we approach poetry from less of an academic viewpoint and more from its ability to heal and guide, it becomes more accessible to all. Poetry doesn’t have to be overly flamboyant and only understood by the literarily trained. It can be used as a tool by everybody if we let it speak to us in times of trouble. So, to the reader, persist with poetry, collect your own meanings and search for a poem that soothes your soul.
“Poetry, Mosaic Ceiling (Washington, DC)” by takomabibelot is marked with CC0 1.0