Why is poetry important?
Poetry is ridiculous. It’s an excuse to say ridiculous things and get away with it. I wrote a poem the other day about a fake study that claimed 12% of people believe that when the full moon shines on the human body, it is possible to see their internal organs. Ridiculous, right? Perhaps it’s possible to get away with it because so few people care about poetry, and those that do have a preference for the odd and unusual. The stranger, the better. Even ‘mainstream’ poetry is a niche interest. The world continues all around us. And yet, every now and again one breaks through into the popular consciousness and the ridiculousness and variety of the world is highlighted and everyone looks at it and thinks, huh!
In another, more serious way, I also think of poetry along the same lines as Wallace Stevens: as a replacement for religious spirituality. I like what Susan B. Weston said about ‘Sunday Morning’: ‘the "revelation of a secular religion."' We say these ridiculous things, but sometimes they add up to more than the sum of their parts. Sometimes there’s a stone buried in poems and when you wash it in the sea it turns red.
Finally, poetry also makes us question language. Does a word have to mean exactly what you’ve been taught it means? A prime issue with understanding and acceptance of poetry as an art form is that everyone feels a sense of ownership over the language they speak. That language, therefore, has to mean something and if you don't understand what it means then it must be elitist/you're not clever enough to get the poem. This is a misconception that I try to correct on a daily basis as part of my work as an English teacher. Poetry is about making you feel (or not feel) things, without needing to explain why. That’s valuable. It can be beautiful and surprising and harsh and weird, and it’s at its best when it resists logic.
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