Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

          We think of writing as line after line, margin to margin, the kind of prose that fills today’s newspapers, books and this column.

          But first came poetry–in song, rhythm and the engaging forms of rhyme. Early shamans used it as oral history to relate daily life and its dangers.

          Poetry not only informed, it stirred the imagination and created altered states of mind. Today, like fashion, it comes and goeS–both in style and popularity. Right now it’s at a peak and everyone seems to be, or wants to be, a poet. But all art should be democratic, hence, all is allowable. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Poetry too has both golden ages and down-times. At its best there are always people who want to take control of it. They set themselves up as authorities even when they aren’t. Or they imagine they know more than they really do. They become critics and god only knows how. And from their perches they decide who is or isn’t a poet. May their tribe not increase.

Visual art will also break through with something that is met with fierce resistance but won’t go away; it flies over the heads of the snobs and critics and touches us with a new vision. An early radical exhibition in Europe created such a stir that viewers nearly destroyed the gallery and its contents with a fury. And the artists were ecstatic!—In a world where war had co-opted and compromised politics, education, science and religion to accomplish its violent ends, they had jolted people from their complacency into feeling something different.

Poetry too can be a force of resistance. I repeat that Walt Whitman, arguably the greatest American poet, changed the rules and introduced an iconoclastic style that a lot of people didn’t like—such as Emily Dickinson. Whitman once walked along Boston Common with Emerson, during which the Sage of Concord, a surprising early fan of Whitman, offered some cautionary advice. Whitman thought about it and decided not to take it. He kept on writing and became truly great. Emerson, unlike many of today’s critics, took it quite in stride.

It was all good to keep in mind while April playsed out as National Poetry Month. But like all good things it’s not just for special times. Shakespeare said that a theatrical play could capture the conscience even of a king. So it is with poetry as a means of breaking through where prose might not.

Homer wrote his stories in poetry and we’re still reading them. The prophets of the Jewish bible wrote in poetry (though not always printed that way). And on first reading him for myself it struck me that a day of Isaiah in the king’s court was a very bad day for the king, for truth was spoken to power.

Compare that to religious leaders today, who suck up to powers-that-be at every opportunity: their public prayers merely cater to the occasion and dare not call out for justice here or anywhere. Billy Graham enjoyed his celebrity to the hilt, playing golf with presidents, flying in their private planes and forgiving their sins against God and country while condemning the younger generation for their sex and drugs. A prophet, or a religious Barbie-Doll?

Go wherever poetry is spoken. It too is sacred scripture. Some will be great, some not so much, some will be surprisingly good. Some will be so-so but earnest and reflective of the poet’s experience–much like our own lives, and help us to know we are not alone.

I was privileged to display poetry at Nu Kitchen throughout the past April, thanks to the staff who encouraged my presence while I daily maintained the exhibit. Owner Josh Van Dyke is to be commended for sponsoring that untypical but timely endeavor.

That said, don’t fail to take in the poetry sponsored by local poets–like our daylong annual the Literary Festival–always a feast of familiar and new talent and of emerging as well as established bards.

And when you hear or lay eyes on words, remember: poets said them first.