{"id":244,"date":"2016-12-15T20:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T01:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/?p=244"},"modified":"2016-12-15T20:30:00","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T01:30:00","slug":"poetry-and-me-i-dont-think-its-going-to-work-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/essay-3\/poetry-and-me-i-dont-think-its-going-to-work-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry and Me? I Don’t Think Its Going to Work Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t like poetry. I never read poetry for \u201cfun\u201d because of the simple reason that it\u2019s not fun for me. Having been a student for basically my entire life, I\u2019ve dissected more poetry than I have other things like frogs or brains. So, you might say I know a thing or two about it. I know two roads diverged in a yellow wood and some guy decided he had to be special <\/em>and take the one no one went down (and then brag to everyone that he did). I know that Pablo Neruda had a weird obsession with broken objects, artichokes, and some poor woman in her garden. I know that English professors admire that Shakespeare (or maybe some other guy) put himself through the torture of writing in iambic pentameter-still not sure what it is, though. Above all else I know that I am \u201csupposed\u201d to feel some sort of connection to poetry. It\u2019s like a song, teachers would say. It touches the emotions, I\u2019ve been told.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to believe that my teachers genuinely meant what they said, but I also know that they were partly trying to justify their next question; what did I think it meant? I was supposed to be able to read a poem and repeat it back, except now in plain English, and that was it. Lesson over. But then there\u2019s this philosopher named Theodor Adorno who said something else; \u201cPermit me to repeat that we are concerned not with the poet as a private person, not with his psychology or his so-called social perspective, but with the poem as a philosophical sundial telling the time of history.\u201d[1]<\/a> He says that what the poet meant doesn\u2019t help me learn anything; what\u2019s more important is how I interpret it. I will go through this in more detail later, but his claim is that everyone can find a different meaning in the same piece of language. It depends on the life we live. I speak in the same language to as CEOs, stay at home moms, war refugees, and poets themselves. But we\u2019re all very different. So then if I can read any poem in a way that is supposed to make it relatable to me, then I should be able to emotionally connect to it and have it mean something \u201cspecial\u201d.[2]<\/a> This argument makes sense. I\u2019ve put serious thought into this exact aspect of language and he has a point.<\/p>\n

It just doesn\u2019t happen for me.<\/p>\n

As much as I don\u2019t like poetry as a whole, there is one poem that stuck with me (at least as much as a poem can). It also highlights many of Adorno\u2019s points. It\u2019s about a priest who we\u2019d call a mystic because he thinks that he met God. And no, it had nothing to do with a potato chip. Anyway, now that this priest, St. John, has met God, all he wants to do is to die; he wants to escape his earthly life and be with God again. The title of the poem \u201cI am Dying because I do not Die\u201d is kind of clever then, and a little sappy, but that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n

The point is that this specific poem highlights Adorno\u2019s argument in On Lyric Poetry and Society <\/em>in a few different ways. Adorno says that every lyric poem establishes someone as the speaker. And this is somehow a necessary step in making it about everyone. He says, \u201cThe \u201cI\u201d whose voice is heard in the lyric is an \u201cI\u201d that defines and expresses itself as something opposed to the collective, to objectivity.\u201d[3]<\/a> Well, from the very beginning St. John directs all the focus onto himself. The first words are \u201cI live without living within myself.\u201d[4]<\/a> It doesn\u2019t so much matter what he\u2019s saying; it matters that he\u2019s mentioned himself twice in the first verse. There are other examples of this: \u201cI no longer live within myself,\u201d \u201cI am sorry for myself,\u201d and \u201cI will lament my life\/so long as it is prolonged\/because of my sins.\u201d[5]<\/a> Personally, I\u2019d have to be on something strong to think this poem was about me. The poet is saying that he <\/em>feels like he <\/em>is missing a part of himself <\/em>because he<\/em> met God; there aren\u2019t many of us who can relate to that. There are experts who say we can\u2019t understand them at all: \u201cIn dealing with a language of the “unsayable,” critical analysis rejects this language as lacking in rigor, as a commentary too encumbered with images and impressions, it will encounter nothing more in the field of observation than psychological curiosities or small marginal groups.\u201d[6]<\/a> Does language have the power to describe something that we cannot see, touch, hear, etc.? Try describing love and see if you get any further than a bunch of other abstractions. Or maybe some physiological symptoms that could be caused by a hundred other things. We know that they aren\u2019t love, but we don\u2019t have a way to say it is. The same goes for describing a meeting with a divine entity.<\/p>\n

After meeting God, I don\u2019t think we could blame him for not feeling like he quite belongs. I know that sometimes my mind wanders out of the room in a boring meeting, but he literally feels like a part of him is gone; \u201cAbsent from you\/what kind of life can I lead\/but to suffer to death, \/the cruelest death I\u2019ve ever known?\u201d[7]<\/a> Now, if the \u201cI\u201d in this poem is criticizing anything, it would appear to be the world around him; he feels like he\u2019s being held back. Given that having a face-to-face with God is more life-changing than getting your driver\u2019s license-which might already make you want to skip town-the feeling of \u201cdissent of the individual in relation to the group; an irreducibility of desire within the society that represses or masks it without eliminating it; a discontent within civilization,\u201d[8]<\/a> a commonly held feeling among mystics, is not unreasonable. He wants to get the fuck out.<\/p>\n

As elegant as his poetry may be, St. John is really frustrated. Mystics were treated like crap because no one could understand the crazies that had \u201cseen God\u201d.[9]<\/a> Life had, in fact, become scary for St. John, who felt worse than a fish out of water (Even the fish taken out of water\/does not lack relief\/for in the death that he suffers\/death finally comes to his rescue.\u201d[10]<\/a>) At the same time, though, he\u2019s too scared to die because he might not actually find God again. He\u2019s oscillating back and forth between living being worse than dying and dying being more nerve-wracking than living (And if I take joy, my lord\/in the hope of contemplating you\/when I realize that I can lose you\/my pain doubles\u201d[11]<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This leaves us with a couple main points that make a whole lot of sense (not really): a) that he feels worse than a dying fish, b) that he doesn\u2019t think he belongs on earth anymore, c) that he has horrible anxiety about actually dying, the one thing he\u2019s asking for. And Adorno says I should be able to relate to all of this without a problem. No wonder I hate poetry.<\/p>\n

Granted, this is not the whole story. Language has some tricks built into it that might back Adorno up. When you read the sentence \u201cI don\u2019t like poetry\u201d, you imagine that it is about me, the writer of this essay. But what if it wasn\u2019t? St. John never says \u201cI, St. John of the Cross, born in Spain in 1542\u2026\u201d[12]<\/a> or anything like that. If we don\u2019t know who the \u201cI\u201d is, what\u2019s to say it can\u2019t be the reader? If the reader places himself in the poem, it can mean almost anything; everyone can interpret it differently.<\/p>\n

This means that the poem doesn\u2019t need to be about God. Of course, it can\u2019t be about anything in the world, but I would imagine most people have had to make a tough decision before. If the poem becomes more about a rough teenage breakup vs staying in a dysfunctional high school relationship than about a miserable life vs dying in the hopes of meeting God, more people can read it and think \u201cOh yeah, that makes sense\u201d because everyone, like the fish, is trying to find relief in these situations. Adorno says a more universal underlying theme like that is what makes a lyric poem \u201cart\u201d and that\u2019s why we appreciate it.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n

Even still, you might relate to a decision like this more easily, but it might not feel terribly consequential in the long run. But what if the poem were about questioning faith? This has the potential to be life changing. I mean, how many movies have we seen about a guy \u201cfinding God\u201d after he stopped believing for some reason (example: the movie literally titled Questioning Faith <\/em>or people in exorcism movies not believing in demons until their child levitates)? Well, this might have actually been why St. John wrote this poem in the first place. He never wanted anyone to practice religion the same way he did; \u201cJohn is no Pelagian. He believes that God draws us to God\u2019s own self by the utterance of God\u2019s word in eternity, creation, and history.\u201d[14]<\/a>The last thing St. John wanted to do was overshadow God. But he clearly has some questions for the big man upstairs, and so do a lot of other people. Adorno says this is what makes the poem \u201ccollectivist\u201d despite the fact that the poet wrote \u201cI\u201d 42 times.<\/p>\n

Now this poem has been \u201cdeindividualized\u201d because everyone is a part of it. Adorno says you can go through the same process with every other lyric poem. In fact, he says there\u2019s no way for language to be used to go against the grain of society;[15]<\/a> the acid-dropping hippie (who follows no rules) uses the same dictionary as the president of the United States (who should<\/em> follow every rule). In the end, we can only read or listen to poetry through language, something that is bound by society. I live in this society, I speak the language, so Adorno says I should be able to relate to poetry through these universal concepts. Nothing should <\/em>be outside of my reach if I can use language as a tool to access it.<\/p>\n

In the case of St. John\u2019s poetry, Adorno is right. St. John wanted to be a spiritual guide more than anything, and he wrote most of his poetry to give away for free so that people could learn from it.[16]<\/a> It seems like St. John wanted to bring people together with his poetry. Even if he didn\u2019t, Adorno makes it so that he did, and he applies this concept to every other lyric. He makes a good argument for it too. It\u2019s not like I don\u2019t believe him.<\/p>\n

Parts of me wishes I could experience what he was talking about. Poetry is a phenomenon in Adorno\u2019s eyes and I see it too for this reason: I could walk into a high school and ask the first kid I see high on crystal meth to interpret a poem for me and he would probably say something just as profound as his \u201cexpert\u201d English teacher. There aren\u2019t a lot of things you could do that with. I think I should be able to relate to poetry, too. There are references I\u2019ve missed, jokes I don\u2019t get, and tests I\u2019ve failed because I don\u2019t relate well to poetry. It\u2019s a big part of our world. It\u2019s a difficult situation to be in to not know what you don\u2019t know, especially when so many people tell you that you should know it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works cited:<\/p>\n

Adorno, Theodor W., and Rolf Tiedemann. Notes to Literature<\/em>. Vol. 1. New York: Columbia UP, 1991. Print.<\/p>\n

Rivers, Elias L. Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain, with English Prose Translations<\/em>. New York: Dell Pub., 1966. Print.<\/p>\n

De Certeau, Michel, and Marsanne Brammer. \u201cMysticism.\u201d Diacritics<\/em>, vol. 22, no. 2, 1992<\/p>\n

Moore, John P. “St. John of the Cross.” St.Anthony Messenger 12 2014: 14-8. ProQuest. Web. 14 Dec. 2016 .<\/p>\n

Cunningham, Lawrence S. “St. John of the Cross, Mystic of the Light.” America<\/em> Jan 30 2006: 22-5. ProQuest. <\/em>Web. 14 Dec. 2016.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t like poetry. I never read poetry for \u201cfun\u201d because of the simple reason that it\u2019s not fun for me. Having been a student for basically my entire life, I\u2019ve dissected more poetry than I have other things like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1355,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essay-3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1355"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl-209-fall16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}