If I've said it once, I've said it seven hundred thousand, five hundred and sixty-two times. The point of poetry is not to sound smart; it is not to use big words; it is not to be shocking; it is not to get your name in print; it is not to convey your agenda. It is to share humanity. It is to share emotion. It is to be both personal and universal. It is to avoid cliches and say something old in a new way (think Shakespeare, the master of telling the same old stories about the human condition in new and interesting ways). It is to be observant. It is to be honest.
I'm reading Lovers of the Lost (David R. Godine, 2010), by Wesley McNair, which is a collection of new and selected poems. I love how his poems seem random and effortless. Here's a poem about a farm. Here's a poem about bank robbers. Here's a poem about telephones. So ordinary. So common. Yet, these glimpses into ordinary life are more poignant than any poem that strives to analyze politics or explain the meaning of life. When it comes down to it, we are just people, and the things that move us are the moments when we realize that everybody else are just people, too. And so it will remain until our extinction. Those are my words, not McNair's. He would never be so exalted or preachy. He would simply say:
Sleep
The young dog would like to know
why we sit so long in one place
intent on a box that makes the same
noises and has no smell whatever.
Get out! Get out! we tell him
when he asks us by licking the back
of our hand, which has small hairs,
almost like his. Other times he finds us
motionless with papers in our lap,
or at a desk looking into a humming
square of light. Soon the dog understands
we are not looking, exactly, but sleeping
with our eyes open, then goes to sleep
himself. Is it us he cries out to,
moving his legs somewhere beyond
the rooms where we spend our lives?
We don't think to ask, upset
as we are in the end with the dog,
who has begun throwing the old,
shabby coat of himself down on every
floor or rug in the apartment, sleep,
we say, all that damn dog does is sleep.
The young dog would like to know
why we sit so long in one place
intent on a box that makes the same
noises and has no smell whatever.
Get out! Get out! we tell him
when he asks us by licking the back
of our hand, which has small hairs,
almost like his. Other times he finds us
motionless with papers in our lap,
or at a desk looking into a humming
square of light. Soon the dog understands
we are not looking, exactly, but sleeping
with our eyes open, then goes to sleep
himself. Is it us he cries out to,
moving his legs somewhere beyond
the rooms where we spend our lives?
We don't think to ask, upset
as we are in the end with the dog,
who has begun throwing the old,
shabby coat of himself down on every
floor or rug in the apartment, sleep,
we say, all that damn dog does is sleep.
Thank you for this. I needed to be reminded. I taught poetry as part of a rehab program to women prisoners. One of the women described herself, "I am Bologna". Simple, touching and unforgettable. Later she wrote one of the few poems I memorized without even trying.
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