What's the point of Poetry?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? If you haven't, maybe you should.

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Occasionally when I am either writing, reading or listening to poetry I find myself asking the question “what’s the point of poetry?”

This is usually prompted by something I’m working on which is frustrating me or missing the mark. Or when what I’m reading or listening to - and yes, that includes my own work! - seems not quite ‘good enough’. Even though that latter statement is a subjective if not controversial one, I would define it as a poem failing in terms of form, or content, or subject, or engagement. It fails when I haven’t been ‘touched’ by it either emotionally or technically, or if the poem seems flat and pointless. Again, not excluding my own work.

My follow-on from such an experience is often to query whether it would have made any difference at all if I - or the other poet - had never written the poem concerned in the first place. Would my life be any different? Would anything be any different?

It’s that ‘so what?’ moment.

You may think this is somewhat nihilistic. Indeed, the ‘what’s the point?’ question may never even have occurred to you should you have a profound and unshakeable belief in the craft. But I happen to think that asking such questions - such difficult questions - is not only healthy but is essential, especially for writers.

So how should we tackle answering it?

You’ll have your own view of course - assuming you’ll indulge me and grant a) that I’m not raving mad, and b) you agree that it’s worth tackling in the first place!

Here are a few thoughts…

We’re talking about two relationships: the first is between the poet and their poem; the second between that same poem and its readers.

A poem is polygamous. Oh it starts out faithful enough - but that’s only when we’re writing it. During those heady days it belongs to us, we belong to each other; there is no third party involved. Healthy or not, the relationship is a symbiotic one.

But as soon as we decide it is ‘finished’ - and because we feel that there is something to be gained in offering the work up for scrutiny, either for ourselves or the poem’s potential readers - we may choose to share it. At that point all its emotional loyalty goes out of the window, and the poem is off chatting-up readers left, right, and centre.

And there’s nothing we can do about it.

When a poem is shared, the poet gives away the rights to the poem - and, in turn, the poem sheds its fealty. On the poet’s part, this is not exactly a sacrifice, but is certainly a cutting of the umbilical cord. The control the writer once had over their words is forsaken. Whatever happens between poem and reader is - for the poet - unknowable, and often unredeemable.

What can make this an even worse experience is when the sharing takes the form of competition entry and the poem ends up being rejected..!

Often you see poets trying to regain control of their work in readings - such as Open Mics - or in writing groups. They do so by telling a poem’s readers/listeners (all those with whom it has been off having initially tentative ‘affairs’!) what the poem is ‘about’ and what they, its author, was trying to do. When that happens it seems to me a sure sign that the poem hasn’t worked; it is ‘not good enough’ in terms of one or more of the framework elements against which it was written; form, content etc. If it was a ‘success’ then surely fewer explanations would be necessary.

Poet: “It’s about the death of a loved one…” - Reader: “Oh, I thought it had something to do with a fish market on a wet Wednesday…”

Why is all this important? Because it is critical to recognise that a poem has two lives, a ‘before’ and ‘after’: the life with the poet while it is being crafted, and then it’s own independent existence beyond that.

It is only in this context that we can consider ‘worth’ - and based on ‘worth’, what the ‘point’ of poetry is… because if a poem is worthless then surely it must also be pointless.

Are these ‘before’ and ‘after’ relationships actually the same? Is one more important than the other?

Clearly they are not the same - and therefore the purpose and ‘worth’ of the poem must be different.

From the get-go, a poet’s relationship with their poem is a complex one: it is their offspring, a manifestation of their ideas shaped and honed by their talent, by stylistic preferences, by ‘voice’, by years of experience - and more often than not, by years of trial and error.

Yes, a reader also brings a degree of experience, knowledge, preference etc. to the party, but theirs is an entirely different order of investment i.e. they start reading from a position of neutrality. Or hope and expectation, at best.

When a poet writes the last word of a poem, doing so marks the end of the creative process. When a reader reads the first word of that same poem, that is the beginning of the process of consumption: the ‘first date’.

Although creating poetry is far more complex, emotional, and esoteric, is it that different to baking a cake? The cook uses all their skill and knowledge to create it, but if the consumer turns around and tells them that they don’t like it… “I can’t stand coffee/sonnets”; “I had another Victoria sponge/Villanelle last week and it was much better than this one”.

Fanciful, I’ll admit; but hopefully you get the point.

What then is the purpose of a poem? Does it depend on which relationship we are considering?

All of this brings us round to what the poem is trying to ‘do’ - i.e. what is it ‘for’? - because that must depend on the relationship under consideration, mustn’t it?

At the most simplistic of levels, what I am trying to achieve/create as a poet is entirely different from my aspirations as a reader. More than that, I care deeply about what I write; when I pick up a poem to read, I won’t know whether I care about it or not until I have reached the end. A bit like that ‘first date’!

And even then, in both cases the ‘so what?’ question is never far away.

For these three reasons at least - the degree of personal attachment; the nature of our engagement with the piece; and the profile of our ‘caring’ for it - what the poem is trying to do, what it’s ‘for’, must be two very different sides of the same coin.

Here it inevitably gets personal because I can only speak for myself, base my theory on my own experience as both writer and reader (though I suspect much of what follows will chime with lots of people).

As a writer, I produce poetry:

• to unravel feelings and emotion

• to attempt to understand and interpret experience

• to hold up a mirror to what I know / have seen / have felt / believe

• to make sense of the world

You’ve only got to think about the tens-of-thousands of poems written about the Covid pandemic to see the above validated!

Normally a subordinate ambition, only rarely do I write poetry with the specific intention of informing or educating readers. Primarily it’s about me, not you. And in that ‘before’ relationship, surely that’s true for all writers.

I also write poems partly as a technical challenge, to hone my craft etc. - especially when it comes to the ‘format’ part of the framework within which poetry is written.

So, in simplistic terms, in my case - as a writer - this is what poetry is ‘for’, to attempt to satisfy these ambitions.

As a reader I come to a poem wanting - above all else perhaps - to be moved emotionally. I don’t read poetry to be educated or to learn specific things about a poet’s ‘concrete’ life; I’m not sure I care that much. But I do look for where their experiences resonate with me, where I can apply their learnings or see parallels in my own world. I want to be inspired, awestruck. It’s great to get to the end of something and say “I wish I’d written that” - partly because that’s also the best compliment someone can give us when they read our work…

And I want to read poems that are also ‘well-written’ technically, are coherent, are not abstract, and - most importantly of all - possess a sense of rhythm. I want poetry that isn’t constructed to satisfy a social media audience’s desire for a ‘quick fix’. I feel as if I have set a high bar. That’s my choice.

A poet should never forget that they are their poems’ first reader - and write accordingly.

It seems to me that in a number of areas so much poetry seems to fall down these days: the mistaking of gimmick for originality (like printing in landscape or with vast amounts of ‘white space’ that makes no meaningful contribution); assuming the emotionally and universally bland can equate to the individual experience (epitomised by the use of words like ‘soul’ and ‘love’); where it is assumed that narrative divided up to look like a poem magically turns prose into a poem (and it doesn’t because it won’t have a poetic rhythm).

So from my perspective as a reader, that’s what the poetry I read is ‘for’ - and where it falls down. And when it falls down - “what’s the point?”…

So are those things our measures for ‘success’?

If you like, yes.

Once you have established what a poem is trying to do - from both sides of the coin - then it seems not unreasonable to argue that you can return to the ‘good enough’ debate.

For example, if something I write doesn’t unravel my experience, help me understand and interpret and make sense of things - and if it isn’t emotionally moving or well crafted with a sense of rhythm, structure and so forth - then it is surely valid to question whether it is ‘good enough’. And if as the writer you instinctively know that, why inflict it on others?

I firmly believe that if your own work doesn’t meet the your ambitions for it, then it shouldn’t be shared. This is a view I have arrived at via years of experience - and writing lots of bad poetry. In my early days as a writer I naively believed that everything I wrote was worth sharing; all my babies were beautiful! But this simply is not the case. A larger proportion of our babies than we would care to admit are ‘ugly’, and it is these - written at times by every poet - that usually end up promoting the question “what’s the point?”

Of course, sometimes as a poet you may be unsure, and the only way to seek confirmation of ‘worth’ is to try a poem out on other people - which is one of the scenarios which offers the reward of “that was great; wish I’d written it!” as well as the risk of stimulating to the ‘mourning vs. fish market’ type conversation. [Mind you, obtusely that doesn’t necessarily make the piece ‘bad’. It is entirely possible that through their own interpretation of the poem, the reader may have got something worthwhile from it…]

And does it even matter?

Well does it? Of course it does!

Poetry can be wonderful; the experience - of both writing and reading - sublime. I can’t imagine a world without it. That’s the point of poetry right there.

But even so, both as writers and readers we should recognise what we expect from it, what we want to get out of it. And we should challenge ourselves to set the bar high enough to maximise what poetry can offer us.

After all, not all relationships work out, do they?

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