Do we need poetry?

This article is from a preface I was asked to write for a friend's monthly poetry magazine. I meant to share it a long time ago, but now, in the #NaPoWriMo, this message seems especially relevant.

Preface to Glomag, September 2015.

Recently, someone asked Glory why she was spending hours putting out Glomag, without any monetary reward. It must seem baffling that someone would, on top of a crazy schedule being responsible for oneself, one’s family and a serious profession, be enthusiastic about poetry. Poetry, of all the things in the world! Does anyone even read poetry anymore?

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My husband and I watched the movie Bahubali the day it released in Chennai. Even accounting for the fact that I was already determined to be entertained during our rare movie date, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Except for a weird song sequence where the female protagonist is pursued and subdued in an almost-violent medieval-style courtship culminating in the lead pair making love. It didn’t sit right and when I read someone’s critique of that scene calling it a glorified rape, though I didn’t agree fully with her, it resonated enough for me to share the article on twitter, saying “This is a serious issue. Especially with increasing incidences of juvenile rape - what are we teaching our boys?”  I then went on to write about my own uneasiness in my blog, explaining why the themes of taming a woman and using woman as man’s prize are old themes that don’t help the gender cause. A day later, someone tweeted at me, “if u don’t know what u r teaching ur boys then u r a bad parent. God Help your boys !!!!” (sic).

I was appalled. When did film critique become personal name-calling? I didn’t even know this person! I checked the original author’s twitterfeed – it was a deluge of abusive tweets from people wondering about everything from her political orientation to her sexual orientation in language not fit for paper, leave alone anyone’s mouth.

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Maybe that indeed is the problem – no one says these words out loud before they type them.  Somehow, it seems that people have forgotten that just because words are typed from behind the anonymity of a computer terminal (or a mobile), it doesn’t make them any less said. People seem so quick to judge, to ridicule, to cut down, to scorn, to label others, whose lives and struggles they know nothing of, whose journeys they haven’t been part of.  There isn’t any time for reflection, it’s like the witches are tied to the stake and it’s a free for all. It’s frightening, the venom. 

Sometime ago, a regular PR executive with a paltry 170 twitter followers, tweeted a poor joke about AIDS, Africa and being white just before she boarded her plane in London. She thought she had taken a smart dig at America’s white privilege. While she slept on the plane, millions of self-appointed judges had called her racist and every imaginable cussword – ironically, many of which are racist. She landed 11 hours later to find she was the world’s latest villain and that she was fired from her job – all because people didn’t get her joke.

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There seems to be this unique fascination for labeling people today. It’s as if the world is waiting for one sentence from you to box you into a category, a type – and more importantly, a side. Whose side are you on? What colour are you? Are you saffron, white, yellow, green? Are you racist, a bigot, a fundamentalist, a terrorist? Are you vegan, bhakt, sickular, left, right, centre-left, centre-right, left of left, extreme right?

Aristotle said, the mark of an educated mind is to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. This directly contributes to the unique human joy of conversation - unraveling layers of complexity, discovering the beauty of nuance, learning more about each other and one’s own self in the process. But now there are flags planted by various people and groups in conversational territories, playing judges and gatekeepers. That world is black and white. And for people like us, who belong everywhere and yet nowhere, it can be a stifling world. It can be hard to say things and then have them hijacked.  

Sometimes, I want to shout, “Oh for God’s sake people, don’t take yourselves so seriously!” Or rather, take yourselves seriously enough to understand that opinions are only responses to people and situations that change all the time. I am not the same bundle of opinions I was 10 years ago, even 2 years ago. To hold me to my transient thoughts is to chain me forever in one space. Second, instead of engaging in a conversation, if you are going to just throw random insults at people who think different thoughts, there is no need for a medium of conversation. We might as well call this the relationship equivalent of the prehistoric age and go about with a mental sackload of sticks all the time to randomly shaft opponents. Third, if people are constantly made to take sides, they will stop voicing their thoughts – this is the greatest danger of them all. To lose our voice is to lose our life.

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Which brings me to poetry. And why we need it. In a cacophonic world of opinions, poetry is our unique voice. It is the pause in the middle of manic life. It is our courage to be hurt, to show the world that we are vulnerable, that we still care, that we are still human – such an essential thing to be these days.  

So, here’s to all you poets. Let the world wonder what you do this for, what reward you get by this.  Every time you jot down your thoughts on a napkin during a lunch meeting, every time you key in your heart while a baby sleeps on your lap, every time you write down 4 lines of verse on the last page of the office diary, every time you take hours from family and work to put together a magazine – know that you are stoking the logs in humanity’s fire, that you are in fact, keeping our collective soul alight. Now, could anything be more important?