meditations for a monday afternoon

If I've had one success over these past two years of teaching it's been that I've taught students how to appreciate poetry.

Which is sort of a strange thing for me to have done because I don't actually like poetry.

To be fair, I don't dislike poetry. I find it enjoyable to read. I own more than one collection of poems that I break out from time to time during the winter. The portrait of more than one poet graces my classroom wall.

It's the snobbery of poetry that I can't stand. Poems really aren't all that accessible to the average Joe and the thought of a poetry reading makes me want to vomit.

I did once try to attend one such event despite my fears that the room would be full of berets and turtlenecks.

"Go on," I thought, "you're just being prejudiced."

So I went.

And promptly left.

I have a problem with people who casually toss around the words 'synecdoche' and 'existential angst.' Some sort of primal urge takes hold and I want to hurt them badly. Because yes, I too know big words like that. Thankfully I'm not enough of a wanker to use them.

Had I remained in that room a bloodbath would have ensued. The jury is still out as to whether or not that's a good thing.

But not all poets can be insufferable twits. Sometimes they actually manage to locate truth and put it down on paper. And when they do one would do well to pay attention.

Which is why today I choose to leave the last words to John Donne, the great English poet. Donne was probably one the first poets who made me sit up and listen. Recent conversations brought him once again to mind.

And so, dear readers, I leave you to meditate upon the words (not strictly poetical) of the immortal Donne:

No man is an island. entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were;

any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.