The other day I came across a friend who was sitting reading a book. She looked a little subdued. I asked politely if all was well and realised she was near to tears.
A little concerned, I looked at what she was reading and saw she had on her a number of poems by Patience Strong. I must confess that my reaction was hardly supportive. I’d cry myself if I read that sort of pap. That was my first reaction.
But then I felt guilty. Who am I to be so contemptuous of what creates emotion in others? I, who struggle with metre and rhyme for weeks and still fail to come up with a decent poem. At least old Patience had facility.
Here’s a poem of hers, picked at random:
Sometimes we walk in the shadows.
Sometimes we bask in the sun.
Joys interchanging with sorrows.
That is how life seems to run.
We can’t keep a hold on its treasures.
We snatch at our dreams as they fade.
But taking the pains with the pleasure,
They’re just about evenly weighed.
OK, it’s banal and predictable, but people take comfort in sentiments like this. And frankly I think it’s better as poetry than the rubbish I heard being read on Radio 4 last week when they were sampling the contenders for the T S Eliot poetry prize. So much of that was prose, as far as I was concerned, declaimed in a funny ‘poetic’ voice.
I wonder what people think of Kipling’s If. That’s an example of a ‘good advice’ poem and suffers from being very popular, although technically it is very sound. Elizabeth Browning’s sonnet How do I love thee, let me count the ways, again, is yet another metrically excellent poem about love, which tops the popularity lists. Is that hackneyed and banal?
Maybe it was nostalgia that affected my friend. Sometimes a poem can revive memories of childhood, of parents, of children’s first words, of loss and bereavement, of past joys and loves. A poem, no matter how ‘bad’, can concentrate emotion and there’s something about the heartbeat rhythm that heightens those feelings.
Do not go gentle into that good night does that. So does When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes. And that reminds me of another reason we read poetry sometimes. It’s to recreate emotions, even to make ourselves cry. It can accompany our mood and purge us of pent-up sorrow or happiness or humour.
Music (and what else is poetry?) can do the same. Some music, without words, can inspire humour, grief, patriotism even. But I can’t explain why some music can bring tears to the eyes simply by being so beautiful. Mozart springs to mind.
Going back to Patience Strong, I don’t want to sound patronising. You know, she’s all right for those who can’t cope with Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas. After all I’m the man who loves Hank Williams, to whom I go when I feel miserable and whose simple heartfelt lyrics so often reflect my own periodic loneliness and depressions.
I’m the man who cried when Hugh Grant finally won Julia Roberts at the end of Notting Hill and takes comfort from Patience’s lines:
There’s a song at the heart of your sorrow,
And happiness waiting for you.
A little concerned, I looked at what she was reading and saw she had on her a number of poems by Patience Strong. I must confess that my reaction was hardly supportive. I’d cry myself if I read that sort of pap. That was my first reaction.
But then I felt guilty. Who am I to be so contemptuous of what creates emotion in others? I, who struggle with metre and rhyme for weeks and still fail to come up with a decent poem. At least old Patience had facility.
Here’s a poem of hers, picked at random:
Sometimes we walk in the shadows.
Sometimes we bask in the sun.
Joys interchanging with sorrows.
That is how life seems to run.
We can’t keep a hold on its treasures.
We snatch at our dreams as they fade.
But taking the pains with the pleasure,
They’re just about evenly weighed.
OK, it’s banal and predictable, but people take comfort in sentiments like this. And frankly I think it’s better as poetry than the rubbish I heard being read on Radio 4 last week when they were sampling the contenders for the T S Eliot poetry prize. So much of that was prose, as far as I was concerned, declaimed in a funny ‘poetic’ voice.
I wonder what people think of Kipling’s If. That’s an example of a ‘good advice’ poem and suffers from being very popular, although technically it is very sound. Elizabeth Browning’s sonnet How do I love thee, let me count the ways, again, is yet another metrically excellent poem about love, which tops the popularity lists. Is that hackneyed and banal?
Maybe it was nostalgia that affected my friend. Sometimes a poem can revive memories of childhood, of parents, of children’s first words, of loss and bereavement, of past joys and loves. A poem, no matter how ‘bad’, can concentrate emotion and there’s something about the heartbeat rhythm that heightens those feelings.
Do not go gentle into that good night does that. So does When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes. And that reminds me of another reason we read poetry sometimes. It’s to recreate emotions, even to make ourselves cry. It can accompany our mood and purge us of pent-up sorrow or happiness or humour.
Music (and what else is poetry?) can do the same. Some music, without words, can inspire humour, grief, patriotism even. But I can’t explain why some music can bring tears to the eyes simply by being so beautiful. Mozart springs to mind.
Going back to Patience Strong, I don’t want to sound patronising. You know, she’s all right for those who can’t cope with Shakespeare or Dylan Thomas. After all I’m the man who loves Hank Williams, to whom I go when I feel miserable and whose simple heartfelt lyrics so often reflect my own periodic loneliness and depressions.
I’m the man who cried when Hugh Grant finally won Julia Roberts at the end of Notting Hill and takes comfort from Patience’s lines:
There’s a song at the heart of your sorrow,
And happiness waiting for you.
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