Outing my secret love

Or should I say, let me take you on an outing with my secret love.

“Who?” you ask.

“Poetry,” I whisper.

Those of you who’ve read Shadows Fall have probably guessed that I’m a huge fan of William Wordsworth and Emily Brontë. I’m a poetry fan, all the way around. I love dead poets, old poets, young poets, and poets yet to be born. While writing that novel, I feared that I’d bore all the non-poetry fans with my unrelenting references to poems. I held back as best I could. For instance, I wanted to quote the entire body of Wordsworth’s “Daffodils,” and the entire portion I was then familiar with of Emily Brontë’s “The Prisoner.” Which reminds me, until recently I was only aware of five stanzas of that Brontë poem, beginning with:

“He comes with Western winds, with evening’s wandering airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars:”

and ending with:

“When the pulse begins to throb—the brain to think again—
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.”

I’m not sure why, in my prior ignorance, I only read those five, when there are in fact many more. I’ll blame it on the printings I read, which must’ve been abridged. Those five stanzas comprise a complete poem in themselves, and they’re the ones I’m most at home with, so I hope the poet will forgive me taking my time to unearth and integrate the rest.

I’d quote all my favorite Wordsworth passages here, but that would take a book-length post, so I’ll leave it at my all-time favorite four lines:

“Hast thou seen with flash incessant
Bubbles gliding under ice,
Bodied forth and evanescent,
No one knows by what device?”

I don’t have my character Beth Gray’s gift of flawless memory, but I used to work at memorizing favorites, like a single stanza of Wordsworth’s “Intimations of Immortality,” and as a teenager I copied into a journal numerous Emily Dickenson and Sara Teasdale poems. I jotted down poetic song lyrics, too. John Denver’s “The Wings That Fly Us Home” and Don McClean’s “Winterwood” come to mind, as well as Cat Stevens’ “Oh Very Young.” Song lyrics tend to go best with the music they were intended for, but the combination is a kind of poetry, with the power to touch our depths or carry us away.

One happy discovery of the past few years has been my introduction to the poems of Mary Oliver. Her tribute titled, “The Buddha’s Last Instruction,” inspires a vision of a sunrise, as well as the impression of a soul so ignited. (It can be found in her book, House of Light.) Don’t take my word for it, and don’t be satisfied with the tidbits available online. Mary Oliver is a living poet, and I encourage everyone to support living poets by buying their work. I feel thirsty for poetry just contemplating the title of her collection, Thirst. I long to gather her entire works, including her poetry and essays, immerse myself in poetic expression, then join forces with the cosmic rendering of words into new forms: She’s also written two books on writing, A Poetry Handbook and Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse.

You might like her poetry as much as I do, or you might want to try the works of any number of other living poets, such as Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood, John Ashbery, or Annie Dillard.

If all language had to be delivered as poetry, I’d be too silent (some people think I already am), because I’m so in awe of the great poets. I’d spend my attention listening to them, and never think what to say myself. But there’s no point in those of us who are less gifted remaining silent, when letting one’s words take wing requires practice. Think what a lovely world that would be — all poetry.