A Love Letter To Literature and Poetry

My own acquaintance and relationship with poetry is bound up with acquisition, memorization, and recital. That is: I realized when I was quite young that I could learn poems "by heart," as the saying goes.  It was no great hardship for me to commit poems and verses of literary accretions to memory. As Gwendolen remarked in "The Importance Of Being Earnest", it was less a duty than it was a pleasure. Furthermore, I found that this fairly simple attainment could, as well as grant me satisfaction and purpose, win me praise. Seldom a week goes by where I am not complimented in one form or another after demonstrating this trait. This helped make up for my almost feckless inability in the areas of mathematics and mechanics (traits that oddly enough, both of my brothers have remarkable talents for).

And, when it came to poetry, I would squirm at the embarrassed clumsiness with which my classmates "read" beautiful lines that they obviously felt were onerous by definition. It seemed to me that they had a delicious truffle in their hands and then cast it aside only to munch on the wrapper it came in. 

One of my favorite books growing up was Kipling's wonderful and light-hearted romp known as "Just So Stories". This book, which I still regard as criminally underrated in Kipling's anthology, is a warm and exuberant tour through the fictional genesis of how various animals acquired their distinctive traits (how the elephant's trunk became so long was my personal favorite). But the book also contained quite a bit of poetry and one that I committed to memory (because you never know when an esoteric reading of a 1902-created work may come in handy) would be Six Honest Serving Men:

I keep six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew
Their names are What, Why, and When

How and Where and Who

I send them over land and sea

I send them east and west

But once they've done their job for me

I give them all a rest

More recently I focused my unusual ability for recall (I make no claims for myself here as I promise you I am unusual in many other ways) toward the work of a far less known poet named Peter (or Dale depending on the day) Winbrow. He wrote a marvelous poem called "Man In The Glass" of which I memorized in its entirety which is thus:

 If you get what you want in your struggle for self,

And the world makes you a champion for a day,

Just go to the mirror and look at yourself,

And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn’t your father, or mother, or brother,

Who upon you their judgment will pass.

The feller whose verdict counts most in your life

Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He’s the feller to please – never mind all the rest!

For he’s with you clear up to the end.

And you’ve passed your most difficult test,

If the guy in the glass is your friend.…

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,

And get pats on the back, as you pass,

But your final reward will be headache or tears,

If you’ve cheated the guy in the glass.

Important and timeless words which will echo through my elan vital for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps the piece that I am most eager to share (which begs the question why I am sharing it last) is one that friends have heard me quote in the past. Part of my self-evident charm and disposition is characterized by my polite and timid musings towards religion. I have in the past invoked the words of the great (perhaps the greatest) poet ever to come out of ancient Persia, Omar Khayyam and his immortal "Rubaiyat". The most celebrated translation comes to us from  Edward Fitzgerald, though I must say I have only read the Richard Le Gallienne translation. One passage in particular that I like to call attention to challenges the a priori presumption that whomever my opponent of the moment is, be it a Pastor or otherwise, that they could know something I do not regarding the existence of God. Those marvelous words which appear at the 25th quatrain are as follows:

And do you think that unto such a you

A maggot-minded, starved, fanatic crew

God gave a secret and denied it me?

Well, well, what matters it? Believe that, too!

Lovely words, indeed.To a lesser extent, I marvel at the works of John Donne and George Herbert (both of whom were strictly devotional poets). I have a particular affinity for Mr. Donne's "The Holy Sonnets". I can also recommend Phillip Larkin's poem "Churchgoing" which I may write a review on in the future.

Are there any poems that spring to your mind that you simply couldn't do without?