Dear TBB Reader,
First of all, apologies from the crew for neglecting our vocation as publishing writers. In the coming months ahead, our goal is to deliver you more consistent content on a weekly basis. For now, please enjoy the brief, but hopefully edifying, article below.
If you have been reading these poems and articles that have been hitherto delivered to your inbox, I think it is safe to assume that you can at least tolerate poetry. Daresay, some of you may even like the stuff! Regardless of your stance on the matter, it seemed appropriate that a member of The Broken Binnacle should offer some explanation of why poetry matters, considering it has been the bulk of our work here. My hope is that you might come to a deeper appreciation of poetry as an articulation of the objective truth, beauty, and goodness which surrounds us.
To begin, I believe that the following quote from Dylan Thomas encapsulates my thesis well. Thomas writes that “A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him.” As you can see, Thomas has given some broad, but also clear, instructions on the role of good poetry. That is to say that good poetry can help shape our understanding of both ourselves and the world around us. Contemporary American poet, Dana Gioia, takes it even further to say that art and poetry “Awakens you to the possibilities of your own potential.” Tying the two points together, I would state that it is through the knowledge of one’s self that one becomes aware of the potential within one’s self.
To be completely honest, I am not entirely sure what Gioia means when he states that we become aware of our own potential through poetry. My interpretation of the quote, especially when reconciled with the quote from Thomas, is not so much that we realize the power within us to change the world for the better, but that, when attempting to write good poetry, we are attempting to communicate our understanding of reality. In doing so, we begin to form a picture of the world and where our role is within that world. It is one thing to grasp concepts and ideas, but to be able to take those concepts and ideas and to articulate them back into reality is another. I hold that therein lies the great distinction between knowing and understanding. One may think they understand, or at least grasp, a concept, but when asked to explain it, find that they can not. To be able to manifest a sense of reality in a beautiful and eloquent way, such as through poetry, only elevates those concepts further.
But why poetry? Couldn’t one just come to a better understanding of himself, and the world around him, through prose? What part of poetry is cultivating this self-knowledge other than the words? Does not prose also contain words? Certainly. However, poetry transforms those words into something more than a utility of communication. Words are but the paint which supplies the poet's brush with the ability to convey truth through beauty. In essence, good poetry is more than just the art of speaking well, but an artistic articulation of the various aspects of life. Since I have used the analogy of paint, I may as well continue along that line. Much like painted art, or any other art, poetry imitates life. As much, and as J.R.R. Tolkien would put it, we participate in the great act of “subcreation,” which is ultimately an iteration of creation through an individual artist’s creative perspective. The appeal, of course, is not to the visual, but to the emotions of the soul through language. Sure, one could say, “there is a tree,” but the poetic mind expresses why that tree exists as part of the greater picture of the world.
Beyond the idealistic language I have used to express my appreciation for poetry, I have to confess that poetry is just fun to write. To borrow a word I learned from my brother, James O’Reilly, I consider myself a Philologist (lover of language). I love to learn new words for the sake of speaking well. Words really are strange things, aren’t they? When it comes down to it, they are merely arbitrary noises we make to express certain aspects of the world around us, both physical and metaphysical. Why not learn how to express that reality better, and in a more beautiful way!
As a final point, I do not purport that by writing poetry the members of TBB believe themselves to understand life and reality more than anyone else. Our endeavor here is to grow in that understanding; to wrestle with the nuances of life and death and to strengthen our ability to articulate, if not answers, at least the beginning questions on the road to wisdom.
“What the world wants, what the world is waiting for, is not Modern Poetry or Classical Poetry or Neo-Classical Poetry — but Good Poetry. And the dreadful disreputable doubt, which stirs in my own sceptical mind, is doubt about whether it would really matter much what style a poet chose to write in, in any period, as long as he wrote Good poetry” - G.K. Chesterton
Below is a link to an episode with Dana Gioia from where I derived his quote above: