THE PURPOSE OF POETRY

I recently was stopped by a woman in the small, local market where I do my grocery shopping. I never met her personally but, recognized her face and knew that we had, in the past, greeted one another with a smile or friendly “good morning.”

She said, “You’re Susan Katz. I saw your poetry books in the local bookstore.” (At that point I was feeling a bit proud.) “Truthfully,” she continued, “I’ve never understood the purpose of poetry.” Feeling a little less proud, I never-the-less smiled at her and wished her a good day. I really couldn’t think of any response to that – at that moment.

However, I’ve had some time to think about it and, would like to respond to her in my newsletter today…

Dear Lady in the Market,

What a remarkable journey your comment has set me on. I have thought and pondered, imagined, and written, rewritten, unwritten, researched, and envisioned, what the purpose of poetry is and, I would like to share my thoughts…

The purpose of poetry is to make you feel. The purpose of poetry is to interpret, through the beauty of language, imagery, and the endless energy of the imagination, how we, you, and I – all of us, are connected, in a very real sense, related. The purpose of poetry is to define the endless array of emotions we are capable of, make them tangible, palpable, relatable. The purpose of poetry is to let you know that it’s OK not to understand it, so long as you feel it.

I once did a reading at a community college in Rockland County, New York. I read a poem I had written entitled, “The Trouble with Sleeping.” In fact, the poem was about the trouble I have always had with sleeping.

A young man came up to me after the reading. He thanked me for the reading and said he had been particularly touched by one poem, “The Trouble with Sleeping.” He “felt” my meaning, he told me. He went on to say how he related to the poem, how it in some way, defined him and his struggles with his sense of failure and his poor image of himself. He said he found it almost spiritual. He understood, he told me, that the whole poem was a metaphor for failure and success and how he was going to read and reread it in an effort to find a way to feel better about himself.

I thanked him profusely and never explained that the poem was not really about any of those things. I never said it was simply and honestly about “the trouble with sleeping. My point in telling this story is, my poem fulfilled its purpose. Because the purpose of the poem goes well beyond what the poet might imagine or intend. The poem, once shared, becomes its own purpose and touches people with a sense of themselves, offering them the option of taking the poem’s message wherever it may lead.

Dear lady, the purpose of poetry is to offer, suggest, imply, describe, define, elevate, imagine, exploit, expose, educate, invite, and much, much more. The purpose of poetry, as with the purpose of all forms of artistic expression, is to bleed light into darkness, to release demons, to discover the beauty of both day and night, to extend the hand of both our creative and intellectual humanity and invite you into our world, into that place where our separate sensibilities merge into one.

Have you ever wondered why cavemen drew paintings on the walls of their caves? Life must have been so brutal and survival, from one day to the next, so uncertain. And yet, they felt compelled to “speak” their world through art. Perhaps it was a way of bragging about their most recent, or glorious, kilI or celebrating a time of plenty. But I think it was more than that. I believe, both cavemen and modern man, felt, and feel, a need to reveal truths, victories and defeats, love found and lost, to speak through the honesty of art, be it cave painting or poem, and say - I am me, I was here, I am a part of you. I believe, these cave drawings are a form of poetry, a way of saying, “just like you, I lived, I breathed, I mattered.”

Poetry, art in all its endless forms of expression, does not intend to alter the world. The artist paints, the dancer dances, the music swells, not because the artist wants to change the world but because the world has changed them.

THE PURPOSE OF POETRY

I write myself onto the page

speak myself in metaphor and simile

my ardor and my rage my loneliness

my passion my gripping need

to be

for us to coalesce into

the ultimate

divinity of

we

I

heed the rush of words that

flow inside me

like a river longing

for the sea

finding as they melt

into the vastness of humanity

the comfort to be found in

we

the purpose

of my poems

to rise above the noise

defeat the snapping jaws

of doubt

tell you who I am

what I’m all about

make you

see

beneath my skin

invite you in

let you know though

we

have never met or touched

your tears are salty

just like mine

love is love pain is pain

vanity is arrogance

we are the same answer

to the darkness

at the final calling

of our name

Susan A. Katz (All rights reserved)

Post Views : 8