AMNA NAWAZ: It's National Poetry Month, whereby
poetry is lauded in schools, libraries and
bookstores all over the country.
Poetry often gets a bad rap for being inaccessible,
or too esoteric for most readers' tastes.
But, tonight, poet and author David Gewanter
shares his Humble Opinion on how, in fact,
we use poetry in deeply important moments
in our lives.
DAVID GEWANTER, Poet: Just the other day,
I heard that poetry had died again.
Poetry, the critics tell us, is too slow for
our wired, sound-bitten world.
I won't speak against these funeral directors
of poetry.
Who knows, they might tell me I'm dead too.
But little shreds of poems are lying all around,
like clumps of DNA found at the murder scene
or some healthy virus passing when a body
meets a body, coming through the rye.
You don't need to be much of a detective to
find it.
We all carry bits of song with us, tatters
of prayers, movie lines or advertising jingles.
We pocket them as souvenirs to help us remember
things, like carpentry's righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.
Some poem viruses protect us, such as the
sailor's rhyme: Red sky in morning, sailor
take warning.
So, poetry may be dead, but, as for poems,
they don't rest in peace.
They leave little twigs and thorns inside
our heads, jabbing us awake.
They witness our most vital moments.
They warm our bedrooms and cheer the birth
room.
Poems reliably show up for graduations, weddings,
and retirements, brimming with tearful homilies.
And they never miss a funeral.
Poems also help us through the prosaic days.
I heard a couple having a not-heart-to-heart
exchange, and thought of the two-liner from
my teacher the poet Thom Gunn: Their relationship
consisted in discussing if it existed.
Years later, after Thom Gunn died, I wrote
this dream poem about him walking by: My teacher
limps on his heavy boot, the heel broken off.
A cobbler's shop appears, and I buy the black
nails, the hammer, glue and strapping.
I work hard on it, bending there, until he
speaks and walks on.
But, as he is dead, his voice and step make
no sound.
So, poems give the past a second life.
And poems help us move from who we are to
who we want to become.
They mix present life with our imagination
and desires.
Like a seat belt, crossing our hearts and
loins, they define our position, even as we
travel down the road.
So, keep your poems close.
The inner life you save may be your own.
