Practice will Bring Back Poetry's Power

by Gordon Johnston

When I tell people what I do, they gasp. Or they roll their eyes, and then look away, wanting to find the nearest exit. Or they lock their jaws (while narrowing their eyes), silently daring me to continue. I teach poetry. I read it constantly; I study it. I even write it. All right, take a deep breath. Now, have you recovered enough for me to continue?

What I want to know is: Why is that so shocking? That's not all I want to know. I also wonder: Why do young children love poems, and older children hate them? Do they grow out of poetry, like other children's games: mudpies and skipping rope. Or do we as adults drive them away, by making them feel like fools? Do we unintentionally tell them: "No, no, no, no, you've been wrong all this time; you don't get it; you never got it. It's much more complicated than you thought." And they (not in so many words, but not surprisingly) say: "Fine, then YOU do it."

Now, in point of fact, it IS more complicated than we first thought. Everything is more complicated than we first thought. The very newspaper in your hands is not only a complicated structure of molecules and a beautiful changing collection of geometric shapes, it is also a product of the complex forestry-newsprint industry. And it's a part of the history of literacy and of the free press. And it took a fair number of talented people to print it and get it to your door. But you don't feel defeated by those complexities. You don't give up on it just because there's more to it than you first thought.

You don't have to be Julia Child to love good cooking; you don't even have to cook. You don't have to be Wayne Gretsky to love hockey; you don't even have to know how to skate. You can see how intricate and skilful, and powerful and exciting it is, and, if you choose, you can spend your life learning more and more things about it. Don Cherry never seems to run out of things to say; he's already seen many of the things he sees these days. But he's not bored by them. And he's always seeing things he's never seen before. That's like poetry. And Julia Child hasn't stopped making new dishes. And she hasn't stopped eating.

But no cook supposes you can cook well without learning something about food, and about cooking ingredients and procedures. And no young hockey player thinks "I can skate, therefore I can play hockey." They expect to follow recipes and advice, and to watch others doing what they want to do. Teachers also try to recover the pleasure and excitement by getting children to play games with poetry, going back to their earliest memory and experience of it. I think, although it sounds hopelessly old-fashioned, that they might also get children to memorize poems. They are a lifelong gift. My grandmother in her nineties when she struggled to remember most other things, could recite the poems she learned as a child. I know a man who, after he had a stroke, was going over in his mind the things he could still do, and the things he couldn't do. One of the treasures he discovered in his mind was a whole set of complete poems he had memorized years and years earlier; he could say them to himself whenever he wanted, although the joy merely of knowing they were there was sometimes enough to keep him going. When he did say them aloud, or in his mind, he could savour them in all their particulars, full strength, any time. Now there's a difference from hockey: you can't play hockey in your head. And a difference from cooking: you can't make an omelette without eggs to break. And, as we all know, the proof of the pudding . . .

So, don't worry about "Getting It." Just get going. Dig out an old school anthology, or your grandmother's Book of Favourite Poems. If you find it hard at first to give up your sense of having to understand everything first time through, look for poems you remember, or for poems and poets who address you more easily, who use a more recognizable speaking voice. You never know; you may end up becoming an expert. At least you won't be so shocked when I tell you what I do.


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Last updated April 30, 2001