We turn to poetry when happiness or sorrow is too great for everyday language.
We turn to poetry when happiness or sorrow is too great for everyday language.
Have you found times in your life in which the emotion you are experiencing is so overwhelming as to defy explanation?
The best of languages often fail to encapsulate some of the most majestic as well as some of the most devastating experiences we may ever feel. When this happens, one language often borrows from another, with the hope of finding, je ne sais pas.
Yet, a master poet may find the perfect metaphor or simile to liken the experience to something of comparable nature, such that the reader may better assimilate the deeper emotions which the poet hopes to convey. In that comparison, we are able to transfer our understood emotions from that experience and find the bridge between them and emotions of which the poet writes.
The human experience, for all of our intelligence, understanding, and comprehension is always going to pale in the explanation of larger emotions and the substantive quality of their immersive engagements.
Try your best to explain what it feels like to fall deeply in love for the very first time. Whatever words you may summon to express the surge of emotion that consumes you when you have found that magic connection with another human being, will still pale in their ability to truly convey what you are feeling inside.
Similarly, try to find the proper explanation to convey what it feels like when your child is born and you stare at their face for the very first time. No matter how hard you try, nothing you will ever say or write is on par with how those feelings are resonating within you.
When the animal you love with all of your heart comes along and snuggles beside you on that day when you really need their support…. How can you describe why that is so important to you at such a moment?
When you are watching one of the 3 most beautiful sunrises or sunsets of your entire life… or standing before the aurora borealis and seeing the heavens light up with a natural effects show beyond measure… try to jot down a quick sentence or two to express what you have just witnessed, such that another may share the experience, without any accompanying visuals.
Conversely, when you are suffering the loss of your favorite person on planet earth, and you have come face to face with the finite nature of life… try to find the words to express the void, sorrow and abject despair you are coping with.
What if you were a being without physical form, could a human in our 3 dimensional existence convey accurately what it feels like to live in our 3 dimensional, tactile, emotion-driven lives to you if you had never experienced that?
Poetry exists because we are sentient creatures with deeply passionate emotions. Our emotions drive our daily behavior on every level, and they are the internal structure upon which our entire existence rests. When our internal foundation is overwhelmed by either extreme… good or bad, we are left without words. We are left without any way of truly conveying to anyone how and why we are so beyond the spectrum of language.
So the next time you happen upon a poem… perhaps contemplate that what you are truly reading or hearing is the valiant attempt of another person trying their very hardest to craft enough language as to give you a deeper glimpse into the human condition… and in that process you are empowered to take a journey to places that language may never truly describe.
Happy Monday!
https://brianweiner.com
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