This post was inspired by an email I received from a very good friend asking me if I would be willing to explain to him why I like poetry. Posted below is my response.
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First, furrr-ss-t, [nice sound] I love language, words, syllables, prefixes and suffixes, nouns and verbs, and all their cousins, whole families of words. I love how words sound, lyrical, like water flowing over stone, how a word sounds when dropped from a three story window. Does it splat or shatter or remain solid and whole? How do two words sound when smashed together? Listen to the fight a strong word puts up when confined to a very small thought. [The word GOD, for instance, which is not a brand name but often is used that way.]
Two analogies.
Words carry meaning like buckets carrying water or orange juice, or milk, or gasoline. In the case of words, the bucket and the content are one and the same.
Words are train cars transporting info from one mind to another. In the case of words, the train car and the content are one and the same.
How else would I know what you are thinking or you know what I am thinking without words?
Words come from old families, sometimes ancient families; they have parents, grandparents, great grandparents, on and on back. Take the word Democracy for instance. Its ancestors are from Greece. On one side is DEMOS = people, on the other side KRATOS = to rule. Who rules in a democracy, the old Greeks said the people (although they did not include everybody). From the Latin VERITAS we get veritable cornucopia of words meaning truth, things verifiable, that can stand up to the process of verification. 2 cats plus 2 dogs = 4 pets. That can be verified by counting. When Jesus in the Bible says, “Verily, verily, I say to you . . . ” it means he is imparting some truth. But not truth that can be independently verified. It must be believed and behaved, or not. Let’s not neglect cornucopia. CORNU = horn + COPIA = plenty. The word is not used copiously but occasionally.
With many words history is drug along, sometimes mythology. Anyone wearing Nike shoes is recalling Greek mythology and saluting the goddess of victory, Nike. They are also remembering history. When the Greeks beat the Persians in the Battle of Marathon, they sent a runner to Athens to shout the good news – NIKE – victory. Then the messenger dropped dead. It was a long run. Athens was 26 miles from Marathon. [miles from Marathon – hear the alliterative melody of three ‘m’s’]
Everyone does this of course. But poets see the multiple connections between words and hear the music in language on purpose. Poets look for appropriate associations. The car you drive is not a Ford ‘mule’, it is a Ford ‘Mustang.’ Why not mule? Both animals are members of the same genus – Equus. But would you be caught dead driving a Ford Mule? Probably not. The associations with Mustang are much more attractive; speed, beauty, freedom.
Poets try to squeeze as much sound and meaning and association out of a poem as they can. It’s what they do in the hopes of recreating the same experience for a reader. [Can you hear a little echo of the GEICO commercial in “It’s what they do”? More association.]
Poets have a powerful tool in their linguistic toolbox: metaphor. Another good Greek word. Meta = ‘beyond’ and pherein = ‘to carry’. A metaphor carries us beyond the literal meaning of a word to associations with that word which add layers of nuanced meaning. Back to Mustang. Your convertible does not look like a horse. Is calling your car a horse a lie? No. Calling your car a horse is a metaphor. Ford named his first two cars models ‘T’ and ‘A’. If Ford had kept that up, what would be driving today? Thank God a poet works for the Ford Motor Company.
These are some of the reasons I find poetry so powerfully appealing. There are more. But why have all the fun all at once. Spread it out a little, I say. No binging. More later.