Poetry Month Kaput

The French poet and thinker Paul Valery once described a poem as "a kind of machine for producing the poetic state of mind by means of words." That may be true, but I've found that in order to appreciate a poem it's often necessary to be in a poetic state of mind already. Otherwise, the concatenation of words never springs to life, but remains in an annoying state of pretentiousness, irrelevancy, and disarray.

That's the way I often feel as my eyes drift across the first few lines of a poem I meet up with in the pages of the New Yorker, for example. Most often I've never heard of the poet in question, and in any case, I'm really not in the mood. I'd rather read a movie review or flip through the pages looking for the cartoons.

Yet there are times when I make a point of drawing a book of poems from the shelf. I may not be in a fully "poetic" state of mind, but I want to get there. And this raises the question of what this state of mind  entails. Valery differentiates it from the more common state in which we use words merely to exchange information. In the "poetic universe" (Valery's phrase) a sequence of words goes beyond utilitarian effect. They command our attention, our respect. They reveal to us, along with a measure of pain and personal idiosyncrasy, perhaps, a vision of balance and harmony. We admire their form. We'd be happy to read them or hear them again.

Yes, but is the world being described really like that? The mission of poetry—a term that, properly conceived, includes all the arts—is to remind us that it is. There's a time for following the news, exchanging information, and getting things done. And there's a time for seeking out that poetic state of mind that offers a deeper, loftier, and more intimate perspective.

I didn't read much poetry during national Poetry Month. I brought home a nice edition of Philip Larkin's poems from the deacquisition cart in the lobby of the public library, but I found it dismal; I wasn't in the mood. I read a few poems from a book by Jenny Xie called Eye Level that I enjoyed somewhat, though they were spare, and soon began to sound like well edited journal extracts. I attended a poetry reading at Magers & Quinn at which three of Minnesota's premier poets, Norita Dittberner-Jax, Sharon Chmielarz, and Freya Manfred, read from recent works. It was a fine evening, though I especially enjoyed chatting with one of Freya's sons and with Norita's two daughters before the reading.

Earlier in the month I pulled a copy of Horace's Satires off the shelf, and had a high old time reacquainting myself with that genial master, as if we'd just met at a coffee shop to shoot the bull. At one point a remark by Vivian Gornick came to mind: "In the presence of shared temperament conversation almost never loses its free, unguarded flow." Yes, a poem is, or sometimes can be, a conversation.

Wandering the back yard on cool, sunny April mornings as the plants leaf out  also has a strong poetic dimension, albeit evanescent. Better yet: wandering the yard with Hilary, planning what to move where, and admiring the new growth. 

Might it be that the poetic state of mind has less to do with literary stimulation than personal disposition? It's possible. But we can also groom ourselves for easier access to that universe of harmony and balance and fellow-feeling, simply by stepping outside, or reading a poem. And sticking with it for a while.