Why is poetry important?
What is language? Is it biological? Is it technological? Is it private or public? How is a word in your head changed when it comes out of your mouth? There’s nothing as strangely unique and accessible as language. Poetry seems to me to be the best place to tease out its meanings in an engaging way. Poetry combines the uptick of philosophical thinking with pratfalls of slapstick.
It’s also remarkable how there can be a social dimension in something so solitary. Working with words, you are handling these nests, stones and joy-buzzers of meaning that have been thought, spoken and written by so many others who came before us. These words will also be passed down to future generations. When editing work, you also have to shift into an Ear of Another. I know what this means to me, but does it really work that way? Poetry feels like a central place in the transit of meaning-making.
Poetry has been part of many other progressive causes. (Horn-tooting: On a very small-scale, personal note, I once helped organize an afternoon poetry reading for a group of Vancouver teachers on strike. Rita Wong, Jeff Steudel, and Danielle LaFrance were some of the poets that came out.)
Also, thinking about our current moment, we see how essential eco-poetics and the poetry of protest are. In British Columbia, we are dealing with threats to our natural environment from industry and government and it’s heartening to see poets like Rita Wong so devoted to writing and resistance. Last year she wrote a gorgeous book with Fred Wah called Beholden: a poem as long as a river. Currently, she’s in court for being part of a blockade of Trans Mountain workers. Steven Collis is another BC poet who’s gone to court for environmental activism. These poets are doing important work.
What else can do all this but poetry?
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