This week’s blog
post celebrates National Poetry Month. It is longer than usual because I am
repurposing a speech I wrote for Toastmasters several years ago. But I think
you’ll enjoy it.
____________________
Poetry can be funny or it can be serious. Its subjects
can be trivial or earth-shattering. But it often sticks with us in a way prose
doesn’t. This is especially true when poetry contains the “rhyme and rhythms
found in life,” as my friend, poet Tom Spencer, expressed it.
How many of you have read or listened to Walt
Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”? If so, how much do you remember? I own the book,
and I’m not sure I can quote any of it. “Leaves of Grass” is written in stanzas
but reads like prose, with neither rhyme nor much of a rhythmic beat.
But consider another of Walt Whitman’s poems that is
much easier to remember. “O Captain! My Captain!” is Whitman’s tribute to
Abraham Lincoln, written shortly after his assassination. This time Whitman
used both rhythm and rhyme, perhaps because he knew no better way to convey his
strong emotions. Here is the first verse:
O Captain! my Captain!
our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d
every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the
bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While fellow eyes the
steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain
lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
So rhythm and rhyme are the main elements that help us
remember what a poet has said.
Strong word images also play a part. Here is another
Walt Whitman poem that has always captured my attention.
A noiseless patient
spider,
I mark’d where on a
little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the
vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth
filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever
tirelessly speeding them.
And you O my soul where
you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in
measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing,
venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
connect them,
Till the bridge you will
need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread
you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.
This poem doesn’t rhyme, but I remember it because I
can see the spider patiently weaving
its web and then hear the longing as
Whitman compares himself to that spider.
Or, to take a shorter example, a word picture can be
something as simple as the one in Carl Sandberg’s, “Fog.”
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
So rhyme is not crucial to remembering as long as the
word images are strong enough. It does help, though. An hour from now, see if
you can forget these lines from
Gelett Burgess’s short poem, “The Purple Cow.”
I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you,
anyhow,
I’d rather see than be
one.
Actually, Burgess must have had second thoughts about
that bit of humor, because he later wrote this:
Ah, Yes! I Wrote the
Purple Cow —
I’m Sorry, now, I Wrote
it!
But I can Tell you
Anyhow,
I’ll Kill you if you
Quote it!
(“The
Purple Cow: Suite)
I guess I’m lucky Burgess is already dead and can’t
come after me.
Rhythm and rhyme are also important elements when
saying, “I love you.” Who can resist John Boyle O’Reilly’s “The White Rose”?
The red rose whispers of
passion,
And the white rose
breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a
falcon,
And the white rose is a
dove.
But I send you a
cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal
tips;
For the love that is
purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on
the lips.
The “rhyme and rhythms found in life” also play a big
part in soothing the soul. My favorite poem is by William Wordsworth.
I wandered lonely as a
cloud
That floats on high o’er
vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a
crowd,
A host, of golden
daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath
the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in
the breeze.
Continuous as the stars
that shine
And twinkle on the milky
way,
They stretched in
never-ending line
Along the margin of a
bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a
glance,
Tossing their heads in
sprightly dance.
The waves beside them
danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling
waves in glee:
A poet could not but be
gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little
thought
What wealth the show to
me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch
I lie
In vacant or in pensive
mood,
They flash upon that
inward eye
Which is the bliss of
solitude;
And then my heart with
pleasure fills,
And dances with the
daffodils.
Whenever I read Wordsworth’s poem, my own pulse slows
and the tension drains away. And it’s all because of word images conveyed
through rhythm and rhyme.
Poetry can also affect the way we react to the world
around us. “The Arrow and the Song” was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s way of
reminding us that our actions have consequences even if we don’t see them right
away—or maybe never see them at all.
I shot an arrow into the
air,
It fell to earth, I knew
not where;
For, so swiftly it flew,
the sight
Could not follow it in
its flight.
I breathed a song into
the air,
It fell to earth, I knew
not where;
For who has sight so keen
and strong,
That it can follow the
flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in
an oak
I found the arrow, still
unbroke;
And the song, from beginning
to end,
I found again in the
heart of a friend.
Then there are poets who want to change the world.
Their message is more likely to be heard if it also entertains.
If Joyce Kilmer were alive today, would he be a
tree-hugger? I don’t know, but everything the environmentalists say and argue
is ineffective compared to Kilmer’s simple poem, “Trees.”
I think that I shall
never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth
is prest
Against the earth’s sweet
flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God
all day,
And lifts her leafy arms
to pray;
A tree that may in Summer
wear
A nest of robins in her
hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has
lain;
Who intimately lives with
rain.
Poems are made by fools
like me,
But only God can make a
tree.
Of course, humor is another way to promote a cause.
Consider Ogden Nash’s parody of Kilmer’s poem in Nash’s “Song of the Open
Road.”
I think that I shall
never see
A billboard lovely as a
tree.
Indeed, unless the
billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at
all.
Oh yes, poetry can be powerful.
__________
The lines of
poetry at the beginning and the end of this post are mine. The Ogden Nash poem
is still under copyright but is covered by the fair use exception. The other
poems are in the public domain because of their age.
