My ENT is a well-read, well-spoken man and a good doctor too. Last time I met him, he spoke at length about the Cholas and the Chalukyas. We also talked about poetry and he told me how he could not connect with my column at all. What was the point that a poet in such-a-such country writes? So what, he asked. Try as he might, he couldn’t figure out what I was trying to say each week. He did add, much to my surprise, that he still read my column each week!
I like feedback on my column. I hear quite a bit of it too. Every Saturday, I can look forward to at least one phone call from a beloved poet friend of mine. And a friend emails me with his thoughts. An old friend of two decades, texts. A student-turned-friend sends me critiques, especially harsh when he spots errors in the article. A cousin sends words of encouragement. The beloved poet friend, never minces his words. It’s put across with his inimitable charm, but Uncle V doesn’t try the soft approach at all. It works well for me and I keep his advice in mind.
Hearing my doctor’s feedback made me think about what my poetry column means. I know what it means to me. For starters, it has given me joy and learning. But what about the reader? Does the reader feel a sense of excitement or enthusiasm when she or he sees a new poet or theme? Or do I alienate readers by not speaking of known poets, familiar names? All these questions accompanied me as I read up on Anna Akhmatova.
Considered by many to be one of Russia’s foremost poets, her writing is a good way to speak of why poetry works for me, and dare I say, for people who enjoy poetry. Anna Akhmatova writes, “If you were music/I would listen to you ceaselessly/and my low spirits would brighten up.”
A sentiment we can easily identify with. Scottish Victorian poet James Thomson (BysheeVanolis) does too, “ The wine of Love is music/And the feast of Love is song:/And when love sits down to the banquet/Love sits long…”
Two poets, divided by time and country, and yet, a common connection emerges.
Even seasons are the same, give or take the intensity. The Russian poet says, “As the future ripens in the past/so the past rots in the future –/a terrible festival of dead leaves.”
Dead leaves featured way back in Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind , where he says, “O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being/ Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead/Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing…”
In another poem, Anna Akhmatova dismisses gold as being valueless in fragrance. “Wild honey smells of freedom/ The dust - of sunlight/ The mouth of a young girl, like a violet/But gold - smells of nothing.”
But in the work of Donald Justice, gold becomes a magical colour.“There is a gold light in certain old paintings/That represents a diffusion of sunlight. It is like happiness, when we are happy. It comes from everywhere and from nowhere at once, this light/ And the poor soldiers sprawled at the foot of the cross/Share in its charity equally with the cross.”
Surely this is poetry’s strength – that we can identify with a poet from a different social milieu, era and country, because we see the similarities in our experiences. Poetry seeks to find in all of us that parallel thought and feeling. And it does find that strong common thread – our collective experience – time and again.
As I write, I am reminded of a friend who would often compare the woman he loved to the rain. Anna knows what he speaks of. She says, “You will hear thunder and remember me/And think: "she wanted storms.”
Poetry is rain and music, storm and calm and it connects the world like you wouldn’t believe. I believe.
(Anna Akhmatova was born on 23 June, 1889)
