What’s the point of poetry? Society is an attempt to strike a balance between the individual and the herd. Economics and advertisements want herds; good parents (and astute lovers) want individuals. Poetry asserts the individual. It has a plural spine.
For Les Murray, “Only poetry recognises and maintains the centrality of absolutely everywhere.” But globalization is busily homogenizing and standardizing everything, from agriculture to language. Popular culture buzzes around the same few forms. Economic theory calls items irreducible to a cash equivalent “intangibles,” as if lacking a verifiable price makes them somehow unreal. If poetry can be so much more than its words, can’t economics and business rise above money? So, poetry might save us…? Yes? No.
Infamously, poetry brought neither Mao nor the young Stalin to tolerance. But those who challenge themselves through art might emerge more alert, more able to face complex realities such as Climate Change. Poetry – at its best – confirms that value isn’t just a price, that response can be more complex and subtle than a policy. Any culture that abandons its muses loses an entire language of perception, possibility, and epiphany. Indeed, neglecting poetry dissolves a major means by which we recognize the herd and stay awake to ourselves.
© Mario Petrucci, 2012
