“When rainclouds darken over our mountains

My fingers idle through the pages

And I think of a cottage nestled

in the crook of the road’s arm

the blessing of friendship

the longsuffering of desire

and the lady beneficence of your house of poems

lady, poet, friend.”

Edward Baugh – The House of Poems

I have never admitted this before, but I hate poetry. It is ironic because that is how I really started writing. My first creative post was a poem I wrote, so I understand how you would be confused. When I was younger I was full of teenage angst. I would scribble poems in the back of my school note books as an expression of the pain and anguish I experienced as a hormone driven, middle class teenager going to a prestige school. Oh the torment my twisted soul knew.

Looking back at my poetry now, I could get punched down by the emotional droning of my sheltered, privileged life. When I was 16-years-old I thought of myself as an excellent, deep poet. Now that I have a finished a Bachelors in Literature I realise that I was just whining. Okay, I am not going to get too down on myself. The feelings I felt were real, but it lacked experience and grounding in reality. My poetry was just a dream. As bad as I think my early poems were, the one great thing about it was that it started me on my path to discover the writer I wanted to be. It was a wonderful beginning of my writing journey.    

Here I am, eight years later with a new perspective of poetic expression. Self-depreciation aside, there are other reasons why I hate poetry. The main one is that many poets are so stuck up and pretentious that their work becomes convoluted and unreadable, particularly for the average person. T.S. Eliot, in my opinion, is one of the greats. His poems are beautiful, thought provoking and profound. Eliot read expansively on different subject areas, from all over the world. Eliot did not just stick to his comfort zone, no he read Latin, Ancient Greek, French, German and Vadic literature (imagine what he could have done with Wikipedia).

Eliot wanted his work to be understood by everyone, so he threw every single reference about everyone into a melting poetry pot and ended up confusing the shit out of people. None the less, Eliot is truly deep, profound and beautiful. His words will live on in human history, and as long as you have a PhD in Literature, a good relationship with Spark Notes or a Literature lecturer who understands Eliot and is willing to decode him for you, then you are on your way to being one of the elite few who understands this master of words. I also have a lot to say about the Caribbean’s own Derek Walcott, but as he is still alive and there is a possibility that he might read this, I will reserve my comments until a much (much) later date.

A friend of mine once said something that made me want to slap her down with a big red brick. She said, “I always saw poetry as something academic, but this time I wrote an emotional poem.” Not to sound catty, but a dry piece of white bread had more of an impact on my emotions than that poem. To me, poetry is supposed to move me by its rhythm, by its mood, I don’t just want to read a good poem; I expect to feel the poem. Any piece of literature that does not emotionally move me is not something worth reading – at least in my humble opinion. As much as the 16-year-old me did not utilise form, or had the deepest of metaphors, she expressed herself honestly, held nothing back and told the page exactly how she felt. It may not have been good, but at least the reader (who was basically me and my best friend) was able to understand how she felt.

Now, I have to say, after writing this post, I realise that I am unequivocally full of shit. I don’t actually hate poetry. Poets inspire us. There are people out there who are fighting for words, and there are poets who have already written them down. Poems have inspired us to be revolutionaries, be free thinkers, be brave, be romantics, be ourselves. Whenever I feel demotivated and disparaged and think there is nothing I can do to make a meaningful difference, I sit down and chant Martin Carter’s famous words, “I do not sleep to dream, but dream to change the world,” and I know that I must go on doing whatever small bit I can to make a difference, even if it is with one person. That line is my personal mantra, and I would not have known it if not for poetry.

While I may just seem like an ignorant, irate student who did not understand the words of the greats, let me assure you that I got an A in West Indian Poetry and a B+ in the course that taught Eliot (though I will admit I focused on the philosophy taught in that class more than the literature). I may not fully understand Eliot, but I appreciate his words.

Sometimes I think the reason why I hate poetry is because it really is too academic. For some reason, I see more flexibility in interpreting prose than poetry. We are not taught to sit back, close our eyes and let the words wash over us. We are taught the background of the poem, the time it was written and what the poet wanted to say. Maybe it is our approach to the poems that make me dislike it? Sometimes we get so caught up in what the author or the poet is trying to say that we fail to just let ourselves feel what the poem is trying to say to us. The lines “This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang, but a whimper” is still one of the most thought provoking and humbling thing I have ever heard. Thank you Eliot. I may not fully understand him, but I appreciate him and the beauty of his words. I just wish that poets would be less academic and more real. That way, their words would be more accessible for everybody and not just the literati. Don’t you think that if the masses read the poets, the greats, their words would be more meaningful? I know it sounds unrealistic, but I am a writer and a poet. If I cannot write my dreams, then how can I dream to change the world?

With all my heart,

Rae Ewenheart