The Importance of Poetry

I have been looking online at poetry readings. It’s a little thing that got into my head, that maybe if I’ll hear poets reading their own works it will, magically, spring something inside, and make the poetry world more understandable.

For those who don’t know me, I have been searching for the meaning of the word Poetry in the context of the word Contemporary for quite a while. I am trying, desperately, to conceptualize the idea of the importance of poetry on our lives, our modern lives, this and here moment. It seems that the art of poetry is not disappearing, but being pushed aside, marginalized, decapitated. The body is still here, the worms are feeding on it, some flowers still grow atop of its grave, but it is not walking, hardly kicking, merely speaking.

I’ve been searching for you Poetry, day and night. Writing you. Studying you. Breathing you. I’ve been searching for you in the folds of old books, internet sites, Kindle editions, lectures. I’ve been searching for you in late night readings, old cassettes, cinematic movies, YouTube clips. I’ve been looking and looking, searching and searching, and the more I need to search the more tiresome it feels.

Here’s an interesting attempt, made by former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins, which I found fascinating and interesting. You have to admit that this is working in its own strange way, on the consciousness and sub-consciousness at the same time –

Or this fine attempt at making poetry accessible, or at least Spoken Word arts, which is but a sub-division of Poetry. Def Poetry is an interesting and intriguing show! I have to see more episodes of it. In this one, Sarah Kay is doing an amazing job here, and this is as inspiring as it gets, if you ask me.

But coming down to it, where do we feel Poetry’s influence in a contemporary way? Where is it really? What is its importance?

Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet Mark Strand was visiting Israel a few weeks ago, and after a beautiful reading, in Tel Aviv University, where he read from  his upcoming work, I got the opportunity of asking him this question – What is the importance of Poetry? He replied, without much of hesitation, that it Poetry a personal thing, and its importance is personal.

Another amazing poet, Bernard Horn, who I also had the chance of asking the same question, said that Poetry has a more global effect, that we cannot ignore the implication of Poetry on our history and our lives.

Both answers seem to be of the truth, but I feel that there’s something incomplete about this topic, as a whole. The importance of poetry, the meaning of poetry, the idea of poetry. I still have to ask why.

The Silencing of Poetry

In regard to the article – Female Poet Brought Before Bahrain Military Tribunal, by Adrian Blomfield of The Telegraph

As the fight for democracy and equal rights is ensuing in the Arabic countries, we see how the voice of the poet is still threatening the government. Who would have thought that now, in the 2011, the voice of a poet is just as frightening as it once was. Frightening enough as to execute and shut a poet up.

“Arrested after reading a self-penned poem to anti-government protesters in the Bahraini capital Manama”

Unbelievable.

And notice the fine, yet very bold, words:

“Bahraini human rights activists say that although Miss Ghermezi was not raped, she was badly tortured while in custody.”

This goes to tell us of the conditions in the cell, and of the importance of the human rights, that are being denied. The voice of the people, a term which I thought was long dead, is echoing as strong as ever. Let’s read her words –

“We are the people who will kill humiliation and assassinate misery

We are the people who will destroy the foundation of injustice

Don’t you hear their cries, don’t you hear their screams?”

For me it is a harsh scream for justice, for life, for love. The 20 years old poet, Ayat al-Ghermezi, will probably be forgotten in the stream of time, but I am in great hope that the meaning of her words shall never fade away, echo forever, until the world will learn.