Sweet, sweet poetry to my ears

Oh, my teacher meant well.

My seventh-grade teacher tried to introduce my class to the joy of poetry. She tasked us with finding a poem that we liked and then reciting it from memory to rest of the class. We had a limited selection of poems to choose. Half of the class, meaning most of the guys, all chose the same poem to recite, “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service, the tragic story of the cremation of a prospector who freezes to death near Lake Laberge, Yukon, Canada.

Out of all the poems in the world, why that one? I have no idea. I suspect it was the only one in our textbook that wasn’t a mushy sonnet talking of true love or one that was challenging to read like one of Shakespeare’s. Who knows?

Procrastination overload

Let me first give you some background, my short term memory has always been, well, suspect. I can remember events ten years ago in vivid detail, but I’m horrible at remembering things word-for-word and, frankly, I couldn’t understand why the recitation was all that important. 

I’m sure the teacher wanted to hear exactly what I thought on the matter. Okay, maybe not. Oh, if you asked me, I could tell you much about the Service’s poem. I could tell you Sam McGee’s thoughts and emotions and his hatred of the cold, but I struggled committing the poem to memory. I vaguely remember staying up the night before trying my best to get the Service’s words stuck in my head. Oh, they were fine words.

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.“

However, I stood there at the front of the class and in my best sing-song voice, butchered Service’s words. Yes, on that day, poor old Sam McGee got cremated twice, first in Service’s poem and, a second time, in my horrible recitation. Oh, my condolences Sam, you deserved better. With the assignment past me, I went running from poetry as fast as I could and promised never to pick it up again.

I would return occasionally marvel at Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” or Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” or even Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise.” I would see the poetic beauty of some my favorite songs, but poetry and I kept our distance. We were like two shy seventh graders at a school dance. I didn’t come near poetry, and poetry didn’t come near me. We kept our eyes on each other, but didn’t dare talk or ask each other to dance. (Oh, I still pulled from the poetic toolbox, using imagery, simile, metaphors, repetition, alliteration and a host of other devices to spice up my writing, but I never realized they came from poetry and I certainly didn’t credit poetry for my theft.)

Changing my mind

But, if it’s possible to turn a large team of sled dogs in the Yukon wilderness like old Sam McGee, before his unfortunate demise, then I think there might be hope for me yet. In fact, I have two poetry books I can’t recommend strongly enough: fellow bloggers Kym Gordon Moore’s We Are Poetry: Lessons I Didn’t Learn in a Textbook and Lauren Scott’s Ever So Gently.

In writing about why poetry is the literature world’s underdog, Kym reminded me why I love writing and why poetry matters. “We write because we have a story to tell and emotions to express. We are touched and moved in unexplained ways and want to connect with others who experience the same bottled up emotions as we do.”

One of my biggest challenges with poetry is that I often feel like an interloper. I’m the visitor to the broadway show, concert, or even a church service, who doesn’t know whether he’s supposed to sit or stand, raise my hands up in praise or sit down and be quiet. So, left to my own device, I hunker down in the background or miss out on the fun altogether.

But, Kym’s essays remind me that poetry is a personal thing. It’s meant to be taken in and no one can tell us how to feel. We feel what we feel. I read her poem “Like An Eagle I Soar” and felt myself soaring too:

“my strength is renewed, with winds as an eagle
graceful, strong, and courageous I take flight
to heights I never imagined were possible”

When she writes in “I Am Woman” about what it means to be a strong mother, daughter, aunt and sister, I found myself instantly pulled back to the day I saw my even-keeled mother, someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly, in seconds turn into a ferocious fighter who wasn’t about to see one of her kids get hurt.

“I can be more ferocious than a lion
I am not a trophy on display only to be seen
I am not arrogant but my fortitude is spot on
I am woman don’t underestimate me.”

Doubly lucky

I was lucky on two fronts, first to come across Kym’s book and then to find Lauren’s and to race through her book, captivated by her use of imagery and the scenes that she lays out for the reader. I especially found her use of language pulled me deeper into the writing and the nature around us. In her poem “I Wonder” she playfully asks if pine needles “wiggle in delight until they float to the earth.”

I don’t know about other readers, but I read that line and I was hooked. She had my undivided attention. My very adult worries and responsibilities were far from my mind. I was a little kid again looking up at the leaves in the trees and finding creative images and shapes in the clouds. I had to read the next line and the next and the next. She continues:

“I know I would cheerfully
slip on my dancing shoes
if the sky above me suddenly
exploded in vivid oranges
as though hope itself pushed
through all the debris
that I’ve allowed to clutter
my mind.“

It’s not just the imagery, but the way Lauren asks questions. I’m taken to another place. In her poem, “Maybe,” I find I’m wondering which window to look out. She ends the poem with a fascinating question:

“Maybe other beings wonder
if they are simply
a tiny atom or molecule
floating in the larger picture
Maybe we’re just a raindrop
in someone else’s universe.”

Oh, I’m definitely a novice at this poetry thing. I still stumble and fall, but I appreciate the new perspective Kym and Lauren have given me. I liked too that when I finished each book, I didn’t have to worry about reciting any of the poems, even though I clung onto them close to my heart. In addition, none of the poems nor I ended going up in flames!

I consider that a huge win for poetry and myself.

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Check out both books. You can find out more about both authors, here:

• Kym blogs at From Behind the Pen
• Lauren blogs at Daydreamerwrites.com

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Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. —T.S. Eliot

“When I began to listen to poetry, it’s when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others. And I think, most importantly for all of us, then you begin to learn to listen to the soul, the soul of yourself in here, which is also the soul of everyone else.” —Joy Harjo

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” —Percy Shelley

“When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” —John F. Kennedy