what's so scary about poetry

A friend asked me to find the text of a poem today. Finding, reading, absorbing and liking the poem has brought me to a place of re-thinking my earlier post proclaiming my distaste for poetry.

The poem, The Avowal, comes from 'selected poems' by Denise Levertov. Levertov lived to 74, and died in 1997 (same as my mother). She was initially from England, an anti-war activist, an environmentalist, and most definitely a spiritual person.

Here it is:

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

So, what's so scary about poetry? That poem is nice. Pleasant. I can place myself in it, envision the moment, grasp it, and let go of it. So, what brings me to prefer journalism and well-outlined academic text, over a good poem?

Emotion.

It's that simple.

Poets seem to quickly zap into the emotion surrounding an event, a moment, even the description of a tree can pull up emotion. Quickly, seemlessly.

I can read an article from the daily news about a vice-presidential candidate wanting to prevent me from marrying the person I love. I can read a report about the large number of military servicemen and women losing limbs, senses (literally) and minds in a war that's gone on for five years. I can read these and not be forced to feel. Willingly reading a poem is another story entirely. God only knows how the topics above could be brought to life, and emotion, in a poem! Imagine the anger, fear, tears, joy, laughter, you name it. . . .

Perhaps I'll check the poetry book out and experiment with reading it in the comfort of my own home. See if I can live through - or even enjoy - some poems.

My Dad liked poetry. He used to read it aloud and become rather emotional about it. I would dodge these impromptu sessions at all cost. I remember one night the year before he died when we sat next to each other on his couch flipping through a National Geographic. I didn't realize it, but I was in for a pseudo poetry reading. He couldn't really follow the sentences and read at that point, so I started reading an article on penguins with him. It was heart wrenching! We started going through the cut lines below the photos, learning how they keep each other warm in bitter cold temps. . . who knew that National Geographic authors could be so dramatic and creative in describing penguin life. Before I knew it, my father and I were reading, looking at the adorable pictures, and crying. We may have been crying because I was reading to him (it had always been the other way around), we may have been crying because we wouldn't have many chances to sit together again, we may have been crying because the penguin pictures were more adorable than any we'd seen. Regardless, we were moved.

That was one session I'm grateful for having and I'm glad I didn't dodge it. Maybe having some of those emotional, poetic, poetry moments is worth it.

~