Editor’s note: Tess Taylor He is the author of five books of poetry, including Work & Days and Rift Zone. She is an anthology editor and “Leaning towards the light: A poem for gardens and the hands that tend them.”” The views expressed here are her own.read further opinions On CNN.
CNN
—
When I teach new poets how to consider the place of poetry within themselves, I often suggest the sonnet “Bright Star.” Written by John Keats. to start:
Bright star, I wonder if I was as steady as you…
Not in the lonely glow floating in the night sky
And when I open the lid of eternity and look,
As patient as nature is, I can’t sleep…
I invite my students to read this sonnet not only because it is technically brilliant, but also because it embodies one of the great powers of poetry. It is to express how humans argue with themselves, show indecision, and remain in the throes of unsolvable problems. This poem shows the vulnerable act of the human speaker changing his mind.
Adrian Mathiowetz
Tess Taylor
For those unfamiliar with the sonnet, despite the opening salvo, Keats completely changes positions at the end of line 14. Keats’s speaker begins by talking about how much he wants to resemble Starr, but soon (by the second line, in fact) the same speaker begins to unpack his wishes. Keats doesn’t want to remain (perhaps uncomfortably) unblinking in the sky, or even become a “hermit” (just a fancy word for hermit). Instead, by the end of the poem, Keats’s speaker affirms the opposite. He admires the star’s persistence, but at the same time wants to be mortal, to be connected, to be “pillowed in the ripe breast of (his) fair love” – breast maturity It changes depending on what you do, and how it rises and falls in time with your lover’s breath.
It turns out that Keats doesn’t want to distance himself. The only eternity he desires lies beside his fragile and changeable love. In other words, Keats lives in a paradox. He presented problems that cannot be solved in his poetry, and in our lives.
It seems to me that this change is part of the point. Poetry has a lot to offer. It includes music, density, weight, shape, mystery, and rhyme. But one of the things that gives poetry its staying power is its ability to verbalize spaces that can change our hearts and minds, even if only slightly. One of the main units of poetry is the volta., This term also comes from the sonnets. Volta is where the logic of poetry changes and the poetic voice takes notice. Poetry may change that framework, widen the gaze, and change the terms of discussion. Poetry is about thinking out loud and thinking while moving.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Illustration of British poet John Keats (1795 – 1821) reading a book.
Coincidentally, the term voltaic can be traced back to the 13th century. The word “volta” also sounds like a play on the word “volto,” which is the act of making a face. It was poetry’s job to change its face in a way that showed humanity. Poetry’s role was to change ideas out loud by going in one direction and then changing direction. The poem accomplished this by not agreeing with itself.
The volta remains one of the important units of poetry.It holds an argument against surprise, an argument against the unexpected, and an argument against certainty. It reminds us that to be human is to pivot, to rethink, to be lost, to see anew. Being human means being willing to change.
Having just concluded National Poetry Month in April, and in the midst of a national situation marked by conflict, I would like to confirm this fact. Poetry is a place where we can practice the art of uncertainty, the art of shifting frames, the art of growing. Be humble in the face of things that may never be resolved. I am grateful that poetry helps us name what is ultimately vulnerable in our lives.
We live in a time of ferocious certainty and growing division, a time in which we are daily required to know the world in absolute terms. We often hear the phrase, “If you support x, you support y.” This may be some logic. “Who among you doesn’t think that x / doesn’t say anything about y /? Have you been silent about z? ” asks another familiar social media voice. “If you don’t, if you don’t, I’ll unfriend you!” I’m paraphrasing here, but I think most readers can explain their own reasons, convictions, and anger. We may all be aware of those moments when we are called upon to put our convictions into action with words handed to us by others.
We are living in a moment of crisis upon crisis. We are called to know, to act, and to solve. But certainty is only one texture of human experience, especially when it is politically urgent to know, feel, and act. And a prolonged period of humbling human experience of paradox may provide us with the empathy we need for ourselves and others to begin and continue the great work of repair. Where can we find powerful words that affirm our perplexities, our insights, our weaknesses, our human indecision? Where can we find the language to be curious, to wonder, to be humbled by what we have yet to solve? How do we affirm the place we live in amidst chaos?
If we are honest with ourselves, we will find that there are many such spaces and that the places we feel are kind. Poetry helps us explore these feelings and live within their ambivalence.
Get our free weekly newsletter
WB Yeats famously said, “Out of our conflicts with others, we create politics.” “Out of our conflicts with ourselves, we create poetry.” As students write, I ask them to chart these internal conflicts. I ask: “How can you explore this complexity in your writing?” How can changing the idea of your poems surprise and delight you? ” I continue to embrace this surprise, the joy of turns that help us discover something new within ourselves.This discovery can help us build more joyful and caring relationships In our own stories and in each other’s stories. And in difficult times, that can create room for hope.
This is not to say that there is no place for our anger in poetry. What I’m trying to say is that poems don’t end on the same note as they started, and that poems have the power to change that anger and things that seem fixed in our minds. When we are in touch with this kind of transformation, when we are attuned to the contradictions within and around us, it may increase our patience with ourselves and others, and our awareness of the transformation itself. yeah. Our convictions are not all that they seem. Sometimes, deeper answers begin from this vulnerable place of not knowing.
