By James Turner
To mark National Poetry Day, new student James Turner reflects on the role of poetry and suggests that in difficult times, poetry offers a route to salvation.
Poetry is sometimes treated as an outdated mode of expression, waiting to die out and be replaced by other, more ‘mordern’ literary forms. However, I would argue to the contrary. To see how literature has changed over time, all one must do it look back at the various literary movements. Literature is something very much organic. Poetry is changing, certainly the form it takes. The decline in physical collection sales and the advent of ‘insta-poets’ such as Rupi Kaur and Tyler Knott Gregson has happened symbiotically.
This phenomenon illustrates that poetry is very much alive and well, and certainly popular. All that has altered is the form it takes, in some cases radically so.
Yet I personally hold the view that poetry is more than this.
It is something interwoven into the very fabric of our everyday lives. If I swipe to the comments section on social media, I may see replies employing many of the poets most cherished techniques: metaphor, hyperbole, imagery and alliteration. The same can be said of the dramatic monologue from an angry partner. Poetry also has an ability to capture the universality of the human condition. As I have been reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses I find it provoking emotions that I can relate to. Poetry seems to underpin our very speech and can ignite some of the most raw and powerful emotions inside of us. Yet is can also be considered important as it is one of the original medium’s texts took. Both Metamorphoses and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are forms of poem. Poetry seems to tie into most writing.
This leads onto a poem that I hold very dear to myself. Recently I was talking to some friends, and one said that they ‘don’t like poetry because I don’t get it’. I replied by simply saying they had not found the right poem yet. I used to hold a very similar view, and only really started reading poets that weren’t mandatory for my studies just over a year ago. This lead to me trying my hand at poetry, finding it a vessel through which I could express feelings and emotions.
If asked what my favourite poem is, November by Edward Thomas would most likely be my answer. Although my favourite poem varies (Dunt by Alice Oswald was for a while – an exquisite poem really worth reading) November consistently seems to hold the spot. Edward Thomas, regardless of his poetry, is a subject of interest. A successful writer and critic, he wrote a lifetime’s worth of poetry in two years, starting aged 37 in December 1914. In July 1915 he enlisted and was cast into the British war-machine. His literary output ceased in April 1917 when he was killed at Arras. Although widely regarded as a war poet, he would be better defined as a nature poet writing during wartime conditions. In November, I believe that the influence of war can be strongly felt however – the semantic field of rot and waste, the emphasis placed on mud, the imagery conjured by ‘mashed’ and ‘pounded and sodden by flood’, and vividly of those men who ‘from the dirty earth […] stare’. For me, this illustrate the damming position of the soldiers who found themselves in the trenches. The poem has a haunting and enchanting feel created by Thomas’ skilful use of meter. Only spanning 36 lines with two stanzas, it is written in rhyming couplets, and this combined with Thomas’ use of punctuation gives it a regular rhythm and lyric feel. I have always found it a satisfying poem to read aloud because of this, and I fully believe that Thomas intended this to be the case. He perfectly captures the countryside in November amidst the onset of winter, the crisp coolness of the air and the crisp frost on the ground. Thomas is commenting on the beauty of nature. Reading his poetry in winter, I can see images he describes. But I think he is also commenting on war, and the squalor of war, and his poetry acts as a warning against future war, and the effect this may take on the landscape. A lesser known poet, I think Thomas’ work doesn’t get the recognition it deserves.
This poem is closely contested as firm favourite by Seamus Heaney’s King of the Ditchbacks, a poem that equally resonated with me when first read. Both poems I read during my ‘discovery’ phase. November was a recommendation from another friend who had read Thomas and loved him. Thomas lead to me reading poets such as Wilfred Owen, Ted Hughes – and indeed Heaney himself. Before I read November I was not interested in poetry. After I had read it I was transfixed.
Why was I transfixed? I think I was amazed at how these words, wrote on a page 100 odd years ago, could still conjure such as strong emotional reaction in me. This brings me back to poetry’s ability to capture the universality of the human condition, and its importance therein. Through producing poetry, the writer is leaving a lasting piece of themselves that may be read in the future. They are adding to the conversation of what it means to be human.
Perhaps, though, poetry does have a duality of purpose. Poetry can act as a vessel for social and political commentary (particularly when we look at some of the contemporary work being produced today) and is vital in this respect. Going back to Rupi Kaur, her work as a feminist voice coming from an Asian cultural heritage is acting as a bold step for the female reclamation of the body. As Heaney commented on the Troubles, Kaur comments on a patriarchal societies’ ownership of women. Although I would not claim to be able to relate to the themes Kaur is writing about, nor would I say I particularly like her work, I can see the value and importance in what she is doing and understand why for some she is very profound and loved writer. As the world becomes stranger and polarised, as we simultaneously connect and disconnect, perhaps poetry of this type is becoming more necessary and important, and we need voices to speak out from the crowd.
I don’t think poetry will ever die. As humans, we will always continue to write. I often catch myself wondering about all the amazing works of poetry that have been scribbled into diaries or on paper, or typed onto computers or phones, only to sit there and gradually fade into obscurity. Writing – and poetry – is important as it is a commentary of the now, and it is important to speak out and challenge conventions in society, but also of literature. When we write we should be bold and brave. We will have to see what poetry moves and grows into next, and the prospect fills me with excitement.