Literary · 2nd September 2011
Erik Muller
Are you a poetry reader? Do you read at least a poem every day, the way you take your vitamin pill? Do you have a poetry book in progress, the way you do green tomatoes that you hope to see ripen to red?
I admit to reading perhaps too much poetry, at the expense of reading about current events or history, gardening or musicians ' lives.
But I choose poetry for its compactness, delight, and wisdom, and, for me, its stimulus to write my own poems, which I'll say more about in another short article.
Wallace Stevens, the great mid-century American poet, has a collection of aphorisms he called "Adagia," whose insights urge us to read poetry:
Poetry is a response to the daily necessity of getting the world right.
Poetry is a renovation of experience.
And David Ignatow's little poem "Reading at Night" motivates me to keep a poetry book at hand:
What have I learned that can keep me
from the simple fact of my dying?
None of the ideas I read stay
with me for long. I find the dark
closed in about me as I close
the book and I hurry to open it
again to let its light shine
on my face.
May you feel that clarifying light from the poetry page!
Ted Kooser
Comment by Tim Applegate on 22nd November 2011
Dear Erik:
I've been enjoying all of your columns, and found the one about Reading Poetry Today of particular interest. It reminded me of a favorite poem of mine, by Ted Kooser. Do you know this one? If not, here it is.
"A Happy Birthday"
This evening, I sat by an open window
and read till the light was gone and the book
was no more than a part of the darkness.
I could have easily switched on the lamp,
but I wanted to ride this day down into night,
to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page
with the pale gray ghost of my hand.
Response to M.E.Hope
Comment by Erik Muller on 27th September 2011
That is a great question, Mary!
Can one take too many vitamins? Indeed. But in responding to this, I want to ask why you read poetry in the first place. I think if you are after something quite focused, in a burst of attention, you might read a lot, maybe too much. A limit would reveal itself: you attained what you wanted - knowledge of a particular poet, development of something new in your own writing.
I guess, if you consider poetry a virtual reality, like video games, yes, one could get lost there. There is an element of escapism in our travels to alternate worlds. The test for our healthy use of them is, first, we return from them, and second, we apply our new experience some way - we write better, think more acutely, enlarge our sympathies.
A long response to a very thoughtful question. What do others think--can we read too much poetry (or anything)?
First Chancellor of Quail
Comment by MEHope on 20th September 2011
Erik,
Can one read too much poetry?
Mary