That's a line from Nightmare Before Christmas, which I think perfectly wraps up the sentiments of a lot of people I meet who don't understand the purpose or point of poetry. In Democrative Individualism today, we discussed the "conversation of life".
Basically speaking, a conversation is just a group of different voices coming together and exchanging discourse. It doesn't have to be debate, or argument, or information. Conversation is just for its sake, in fact.
Oakshotte discusses the different voices involved in the conversation of life, and how he feels that it is predominantly the voice of practical activity and the voice of science that currently prevails, if not simply dominates, while the voice of poetry is left on the wayside.
It was completely easy for me to understand why the voice of poetry is important. Poetry delights us simply by being there. (In this sense, poetry includes all sorts of creative activity: painting, sculpting, writing, drawing, all that stuff. We normally label it "art".) It has no real practical use, unless you count Sir Philip Sidney's argument that because it delights, it's got more potential to open up its listener to the lessons within it.
So some of us in class were trying to parse the idea of conversation without a point behind it, and one of us said, "If it's just talking for the sake of talking, well, of course that won't happen, I don't have the time for it." And Arthur (the oldest in the class, he's a grandfather now, retired from the Navy but still wears his uniform and goes to work there) said, "Well, you gotta MAKE time!"
And we do have to make time! It's a hard thing to do, of course. Personal relationships are perhaps the hardest thing in the world to keep up.
The problem with the voice of practical activity too, is that it's so predominant that it shuts out other voices, and in the end other voices don't speak out because it's improper for them to. Look at us now: we're so used to thinking that business industries are what we should be working in, or science industries, that parents frown on kids who want to pursue more artsy careers, because it "doesn't make money" and the measure of happiness or success is how useful a person is.
Then we moved on to poetry and how so many people have a problem with poetry, because they're doing nothing but trying to find out "what it means". What do we do when we study poetry in class? We try to find out what the context of it was, what it symbolizes, what its themes are, what impact it had. It's not that we find actual enjoyment in the thing, it's because if we don't try finding out something we don't get brownie points in class.
We forget that poetry is oftimes meant for its own sake. That sometimes, it has no point, and it has no beginning to which it will go towards an end. It is an image, a point of contemplation, to make us stop and rest in it for a while.
Dr. Heckerl really hit deep when he said, "what other activity do we indulge in that Oakshotte talks about that has no real practical use, and that we enjoy for their own sakes?" and when no one answered, he said, "friendship and love. When you love someone, you just delight in them for what they are. You don't just think about their usefulness to you, do you?"
So, here's a poem which I think describes what we were trying to get at in class: Archibald Macleish's
Ars PoeticaA poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,
Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown--
A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.
*
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,
Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind--
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.
*
A poem should be equal to:
Not true.
For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea--
A poem should not mean
But be.
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