Why Read Poetry?

If you are on my mailing list I am currently sending out an email message almost daily that includes notification of a new blog article and a poem for the day.

[If you are not getting the poem for the day and would like it, just email me and I’ll add you to my list. texarooty@cox.net]

Obviously I must think it is important to read poetry, and so like Johnny Appleseed I do my tiny effort at spreading poetry appreciation seedlings, but why?

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone. ~Thomas Hardy

Mr. Hardy might be saying that we allow stuff in art that is not allowed in our theology or science, but I really think he is saying that if something is written in poetry it is not going to be noticed much by the movers and shakers of society. Why? Because people just don’t read poetry that often, and busy important people read poetry about as often as illiterate people read poetry.

Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know. ~Joseph Roux

Reading Poetry is important because it is not important.

Poetry is not the most important thing in life... I'd much rather be in a hot bath reading Agatha Christie and sucking sweets. ~ Dylan Thomas

If Dylan Thomas, one of the world’s great poets, could say poetry is not important, then it is not important, at least in the way we generally accept the notion of importance. No one could seriously claim that reading poetry was essential to life. You can live fine without reading poetry. Thank god for that because if it were a matter of life and death, we’d mostly have death. I would imagine that most of the people you know have not read a poem since high school under the duress of their tyrannous English teacher. I just think that it is important that human beings do something regularly that is not done for practical reasons. Poetry won’t drive a nail, or cause the stock market to rise, or toast a bagel. There are no pragmatic reasons for reading poetry.

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does. ~Allen Ginsberg

So why read it?

Life is what's happening when you're too busy to notice. ~Wayne Muller

We should read poetry because we are too busy to read poetry. In our culture we tend to believe that being exhausted is the way we are suppose to feel. Overtime, is not a reward, and added responsibility is not a trophy. We actually believe that the busier we are the more important we are. When we have to break dates with our spouse, or miss our kid’s school play, or leave early from a birthday party, or when we are unavailable to our friends and family, when we are unable to find time for the sunset (or even to know the sun has set), if we’re forced to whiz through our obligations without time for a single mindful breath -- this has become the model of a successful life.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. ~John Lennon

It is because we do not rest that we lose our way. You can’t know where you are, until you stop and look around to see where you are. You can’t know your life without getting in touch with your life. You can’t know others without stopping to explore others. Much of these activities are not income producing. This stop and smell the roses stuff is not generally known to be a trait of successful, important, or powerful people. Most of us want to be successful, important and powerful so we study and imitate these busy folk, and if the big wigs don’t do it, we don’t do it.

The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful. And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see-it is, rather, a light by which we may see-and what we see is life. ~Robert Penn Warren