(HOST) Commentator Tom Slayton is a veteran journalist and editor-emeritus of Vermont Life magazine. He says a new book by Vermont writer Jay Parini makes a compelling case for the importance of poetry.
(SLAYTON) Poetry’s reputation is not good right now. Many Americans regard it as irrelevant. Or worse, incomprehensible.
Perhaps first on the list of reasons is an alarming statistic that appeared in the New York Times Book Review last week: 53% of Americans surveyed said they had not read a book in the past year. Yikes!
Because we live in a materialistic, commerce-driven time, chances are that many of the 47 per cent of us who have been reading books are not reading poetry because it seems unimportant.
Poetry’s current decline also has something to do with the arcane, self-absorbed, self-consciously opaque quality of many poems being written today. Especially in academia, poets seem to delight in being difficult – not for the sake of promoting some healthy ambiguity now and then, but almost as a code of entry – if you get it, you’re in; if you don’t get it, you clod, you’re out.
Fortunately, there are people willing to buck the trends and champion poetry – vital, accessible poetry that anyone with a functioning brain and heart can understand. Garrison Keillor, for example, in his daily program, "A Writer’s Almanac," reads a poem every day. He is helping to establish a listenership – and therefore a market – for open, accessible poetry that almost anyone can relate to.
And a new book by Middlebury College Professor Jay Parini is another hopeful sign. To an age that is on the verge of deciding that poetry doesn’t matter, Parini says, "Oh yes it does – and here’s why!" Appropriately, his book is entitled Why Poetry Matters.
Happily, he avoids the specialized jargon that can afflict poetry and the criticism of poetry. In clear, direct prose, he says that poetry matters because it can help us see the world in a new, clearer light. It can show us the natural world, the human world, even the world of politics, in deeper, fresher ways.
And he makes his point directly and specifically by offering us his own intelligent readings of several contemporary and traditional poems.
His interpretation, for example, of the poem "Design" by Robert Frost is completely brilliant. The poem uses all-white imagery – a flower, a spider, a moth – to ask a very dark question: why is there evil in this good world? By pointing out that the root meaning of one key word – "appall" – is "to make white," Parini shows how Frost’s precise choice of the right word ties the reader into the deep question raised by the poem – makes him a participant, in effect, in the problem of evil. It’s a breathtaking insight.
"The language of poetry can, I believe, save us," Parini writes, adding that without it we are living only partially, ignoring spiritual, moral, and aesthetic values that make us fully human.
His new book, Why Poetry Matters, gives us plenty of reasons to allow poetry to save us – and perhaps save itself as well.