My relationship with poetry has always been complicated. Reading poetry was not like reading a novel, where the flow of words painted easy pictures in my mind. Poetry was difficult, I couldn’t understand it. I could read the words but they never made sense to me. In school, it was only when a teacher took apart the words that I could grasp meaning. But I never liked that process. Somehow, it was an affront for me to dissect a poem. Eventually, once my course didn’t require me to read poetry, I just stopped. For me, it was an uncrackable secret.
I would jealously look at friends, classmates, colleagues, immersed in a discussion about their love for poetry, a poet, a poem. They shared something to which I was not privy. And they didn’t shut me out, it was all me. What was this secret that they all got? Why couldn’t I crack it?
Just the other day I was thinking about my aversion to poetry. Yes, I would call it an aversion. I had reached a point where I possibly deliberately didn’t want to understand poetry. If friends shared a piece they liked, either I agreed perfunctorily (while having no idea whether it was) or I said I wasn’t interested in reading it. (As a known student of literature, I am sure that reaction brought forth many raised eyebrows in my direction). And the issue of good poetry – another thing that has been on my mind. What makes a good poem? Is it the proper following of rules set by some obscure authority hundreds of years ago? Follow the iambic pentameter and you have a fluid line. Rhyme, it sounds melodious. Read it out loud, it is supposed to move you.
There is one instance when that happened, long ago. At that point, I didn’t think about the poem. It was more the situation I was in. New in boarding school, and just returned from summer vacations, I was incredibly homesick. It was a very alien feeling for me, having never felt it before. I have always enjoyed pushing out of my comfort zone and trying new things, barely ever looking back. Home for me did not have those idyllic associations; it was just the place where my family lived, my possessions stored. I was thus having trouble concentrating in school, and kept bursting into tears randomly – at the dining hall even once, when my loving roommates then took me aside and said there’s nothing wrong with missing home. I still couldn’t get over it. Then we attended a class with one of the board members of the school. He had come on a visit or inspection or some other reason I can’t recall now, and as a student of literature, he decided to teach us one of the poems in the syllabus. At one point during the lecture, he told us to close our eyes and listen to him reading it out loud. I did just that. And that simple act changed something in me. I was no longer homesick. I let the words and their rhythm wash over me, I sunk myself into the world of the poem, a dirge about the world war. I emerged from it different, settled, at peace. Ironic, considering the poem was about butchering. But I still hadn’t cracked poetry.
Coming back to the other day when I was thinking about my aversion to poetry, I realised that poetry is something very personal. It is a well-guarded secret between the poet and their poetry. The rest of us just want to be privy to it. Isn’t that what studying literature is? Taking apart the written word, finding meaning, layers of meaning, in fact, and interpretations. The best part is that literature reads differently to everyone. And that is also what I love about literature. There is no one answer. Many times it goes beyond the writer and the written word. Each person who reads it takes something different away from it. Each person connects to it in different ways. The personal isn’t just between the creator and the created, at the end of the day, it is between the created and every single person who has access to that creation. How else would you describe the relationship between a person and their favourite book, or favourite poem?
When I realised that poetry is personal, even more than a piece of prose, I understood that that was where my aversion stemmed from. I was very disinclined towards infringing on that privacy. Who am I to take apart something that was written from the heart by someone I don’t even know? Who am I to say that this is a piece of good poetry and that is not? What do I know? I know only myself, and my truth. And most of the time, that is scary. I was so consumed by the idea that someone else will find things in me that I didn’t know I had, thoughts and desires that are my deepest, most well-guarded secrets, through my poetry, that not only did I not attempt writing poetry, I avoided the genre as a whole. If I can discern what one poet has written, and why, anyone could do that with me. And I was not prepared to open up about my truth. So, I stayed away.
This may not be the answer, I realise, because like literature, my mind also has layers of meanings which constantly change and evolve. Maybe tomorrow I will feel differently about poetry. It is not like today when I read a poem, I immediately infer what the poet is trying to convey. Now, it is more of a gratefulness towards the poet for allowing me to be a part of their mind, world, thoughts, dreams, desires, secrets. I was getting a special access and that was enough. I don’t always have to understand it. But, now the words do take me on a flow, and they leave something with me. Maybe that’s all that poetry is. For me, at least. And maybe that’s all that it needs to be.
Falling Somewhere, Anywhere 