How Poetry Helps Us Grow

amp160amp160amp8220Poetry is accelerated thinkingamp8221amp8220Poetry is the best words in the best orderamp8221amp8220Poetry is stored magicamp8221amp8220Poetry restores us to what is deepest in us It consoles usamp8221amp8220The greatest poetry is written at the borders of what can be said It makes a strong effort at expressing the unsayableamp8221amp8220The meaning of poetry is to give you courageamp8221amp8220The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one personamp8221amp160The impact of reading poetryamp8220A poem pierces the shimmering surfaces of the modern world and somehow penetrates the core of reality itselfamp8221amp8220If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me I know it is poetry If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off I know that is poetry These are the only ways I know Is there another way amp8220amp8220In an old book I stumbled across a sayingIt was like a strangerPunching me in the faceamp8221amp8220Implicit in poetry is the notion that we are deepened by heartbreaks that we are not so much diminished as enlarged by grief by our refusal to vanishto let others vanishwithout leaving a verbal record Poetry is a stubborn artamp8221Most of all it gives us the courage to speak up and to recognize authentic voicesamp8220Where the voice that is in us makes a true response Where the voice that is great within us rises upamp8221Poetry reminding us of what we need todayKindness by Naomi Shihab NyeBefore you know what kindness really isyou must lose thingsfeel the future dissolve in a momentlike salt in a weakened brothWhat you held in your handwhat you counted and carefully savedall this must go so you knowhow desolate the landscape can bebetween the regions of kindnessforeverBefore you know kindness as the deepest thing insideyou must know sorrow as the other deepest thingYou must wake up with sorrowYou must speak to it till your voicecatches the thread of all sorrowsand you see the size of the clothThen it is only kindness that makes sense anymoreonly kindness that ties your shoesand sends you out into the day to gaze at breadonly kindness that raises its headfrom the crowd of the world to sayIt is I you have been looking forand then goes with you everywherelike a shadow or a friendamp160Poetry and the beat of timeFrom Sunlight on Garden By Louis MacNeiceThe sunlight in the gardenHardens and grows coldWe cannot cage the minuteWithin its net of goldLines on a young ladyamp8217s photograph album By Phil LarkinAt last you yielded up the album whichOnce open sent me distracted All your agesMatt and glossy on the thick black pagesToo much confectionery too richI choke on such nutritious imagesMy swivel eye hungers from pose to pose In pigtails clutching a reluctant catOr furred yourself a sweet girlgraduateOr lifting a heavyheaded roseBeneath a trellis or in a trilbyhatThose flowers that gateThese misty parks and motors lacerateSimply by being you youContract my heart by looking out of dateIn short a past that no one now can shareNo matter whose your future calm and dryIt holds you like a heaven and you lieInvariably lovely thereSmaller and clearer as the years go byamp160Poetryamp8217s application to current eventsShakespeare on social mediaamp8220All the worldamp8217s a stageAnd all the men and women merely playersThe all have their exits and entrancesAnd one man in his time plays many partsSeeking the bubble reputationamp8221William Wordsworth on the competitive world of work and consumptionamp8220The world is too much with usLate and soonGetting and spendingWe lay waste to our powersamp8221Yehuda Amichai on this past weekamp8217s events at TwitterHere is a poem written nearly 10 years ago with two phrases removed and nothing else changed that serves as an elegy and lamentation for this weekamp8217s events at TwitterA Pity We Were Such a Good InventionThey amputatedAs far as I am concernedThey are surgeons All of themThey dismantle usEach from the otherAs far as Iamp8217m concernedThey are all engineers All of themA pity We were such a goodAnd loving inventionAn aeroplaneWings and everythingWe hovered a little above the earthWe even flew a littlePhotography by Rishad TobaccowalaClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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How Poetry Helps Us Grow

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Rishad Tobaccowala

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Rishad Tobaccowala

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