Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Poetic Vision

I love poetry! This was also an assignment, but...ignore the bit about Emerson and Spider Crystal Ascension and this is still me.

A poet stands at a crossroads of sorts. Caught in between the universe and his mind, he has to be able to take both of them into account and integrate them somehow, making sense out of madness. A true poet can take feelings and capture them in words and images, and he comes to understand himself through the process. However, the act of writing pure poetry is not the answer to all things, nor are the poems themselves the answer. When people can take a poetic spirit and view of the world and live by the understanding and perspective they engender, then poetry becomes what Emerson esteemed it to be.

Through poetry, a writer can record a feeling just as it comes—fleeting and difficult to explain. Whereas in prose ideas that aren’t set out neatly and connected well are somewhat deplored, in poetry an immense feeling may be captured in just a slice of intuition embodied in a few words. In “Spider Crystal Ascension”, the crystal spider is a condensed concept that hints at a far greater idea. These sixty-six words, not a large number by any means, invoke an all-encompassing image of humanity: small and grounded and content to be floating in a tiny pool as compared to the universe that hangs above. Bursts of intuition like this are sometimes the only way that human beings can make sense or understanding out of vast concepts like the universe and existence.

Something as limitless as the horizon cannot be dissected and categorized the way many other things and disciplines can. Questions dealing with who we are and what the purpose of the world is, for instance, cannot be answered systematically—there would never be enough “data” and there would always be too much controversy. In addition, the world can be seen through many different eyes that influence understanding. In this way, a poet’s intuition and ability to capture ideas through metaphor and concepts that are less concrete is crucial to the way that we understand things. By viewing the world with an eye that can relate ink to lifeblood, Fate to a harpist, and, in the case of “Spider Crystal Ascension”, the watching universe to a spider, a poet can reach out and make some kind of sense of the world: not by separating and examining it, but by unifying it all and displaying it as a whole. And as the same poem can be interpreted many different ways, it takes on particular meaning to each person who reads it, making poetry potentially a more powerful tool than even the poet could have imagined.

If poetry itself is to succeed in imparting messages, though, it needs to have power that is at least rooted in, if not focused on, reality, the world as it is, and ideally science and other concrete ideas. Otherwise poetry has little application and nothing that can speak to the people. In the public eye, poetry is often viewed as “fluff” or completely useless. It needs to include connection to the audience and make a lasting impression, in addition to having evocative imagery, in order to have the impact that it has the potential to have. In that way, poetry can be a key to unification and the recording of the transcendent—but not unless it has been grounded in something more earthly. And even when this combination of connection and meaning and impression does happen, it isn’t often noticed, because many don’t even spare a second glance for poetry.

Poetry is an appeal to the pathos and the senses, and a way to comprehend things, but it cannot be the answer to all problems, especially ones that need real change. Typically, stronger appeals must be used to motivate action. Historically, poetry has often been written to commemorate an event, but it has much less often been used to spur one. The reason for this lies in this idea that people rarely read poetry and they rarely learn from it. If, then, poetry is rarely read, does that mean that its value is reduced? Hardly. Reading and writing poetry helps people understand themselves, who they are, and what they believe. It helps them make sense of their feelings and it helps them draw conclusions about the world. For the poet himself, and the few who read it, poetry can still be invaluable.

However, if poetry was the only means of understanding the universe, comprehension of the abstract would be strictly limited to a few people. Not everyone has the affinity for wordsmithing or the art of poetry, as is often shown when assignments are given to a class and performance on them varies greatly. This does not necessarily mean that those who are less apt for writing poetry cannot comprehend the vastness of the horizon or the universe. On the contrary, it is not necessarily the act but the spirit of poetry that engenders this integration and comprehension. If a person can watch, can take the time to think, can take the time to feel emotions fully and to try and understand them, that person is a poet, and can use the way they see the world to make disparate parts whole.

Living life through the perspective of a poet is a rewarding experience, and that’s where the esteem that Emerson has of the poet is truly validated. The same eye that can step back and realize the transient nature of the world, as in “Spider Crystal Ascension”, is one that can take the ups and downs of life in stride. Being able to see the beauty in the smallest things lends great meaning to everyday life, and contemplation of the abstract lends a strange sense of peace. When you can make some sense out of yourself, learning about who you are, then you can accept yourself—and understand others as well. This poetic spirit is the key to a life of wisdom.

Emerson’s esteem of the poet is not unfounded. The essence of poetry, of taking in life, making connections, and handling it with an intuitive eye, is a necessity for the understanding of things too large for us to examine in parts. Being able to take the large and the small and put it all together, the way that “Spider Crystal Ascension” makes the universe a small picture with big implications, is the way that people can understand themselves and hopefully learn the empathy to understand others—no matter if poetry seems at first to be far from practical. Poetic vision leads to a perspective through which people can better learn to accept themselves and the world. The real key to the power of poetry is to make it something to live by. What a person truly gains through self-realization or insight in reading other works are lessons and ideas to take with them all their lives. Once a person has recognized the great spider up above, he can ascend to its height and find that meaning and significance he seeks.

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