Frenemies (In Which I Became a Reluctant Fan of Poetry)

I used to count myself among the majority of Americans that despise poetry. Not only did I find it a bunch of sentimental nonsense written by whiners and drama queens, but the one time I wrote a poem myself it was as a joke and went terribly, horribly awry. 

But then, I met Osip Mandlestam.

It was during my Lit senior seminar in college, and he caught me by surprise. My professor started every class reading a poem, and I usually used this time as a chance to quickly finish my assignment or surreptitiously check my phone or scribble a note to my best friend, who happened to sit next to me. It was a quiet September evening when he began reading Mandlestam unassumingly, the words of Maybe Madness catching my attention and holding me captive as they clearly echoed back to me a raw articulation of a battle I'd been fighting recently. Forgive me this, forgive what I am saying. Whisper it, less than a whisper, like someone praying...

I set mesmerized as my professor explained that Mandlestam wrote most of his best work from a prison cell in Stalingrad, arrested for resisting Stalin himself through his indicting poetry. His wife, so convinced of the power of husband's words, faithfully traveled to his cell and transcribed every line, publishing his work herself even though he had been unfaithful during their marriage, even after he died in his cell.

His words bounced through my mind, ringing my ears, raising my pulse. My professor read poem after poem, line after lovingly transcribed and painstakingly translated line. I rarely cry, but these words left me in tears. Who was this man, a man who didn't speak my language, who didn't live during my century, who wasn't even from my country, yet who so perfectly captured my doubt and fear and desire to turn my pain to glory?

For the first time, I got poetry, the power of a few words to transcend time and context and create common ground from a simply articulated idea. I ordered Mandlestam's complete works that night, and begged my professor to point me to others.

I've since entered into a surprising friendship with poetry. I'll be honest, I still despise most poems, but the ones I don't, I love. I like poets who make me pause, encourage me to slow down and appreciate the simple beauty of a sentence perfectly capturing an emotion. They move me, help me articulate feelings I'm not good at parsing out on my own, help me admire, emphasize, worship, sometimes reluctantly, but mostly with gratitude.

* * *

Maybe madness too has meaning here.
Maybe conscience, knotted like a cyst,
Knowing and being known by sun and air —
Maybe life unties and we exist.

Bring to mind the mindless spider, its care
For the pillared invisible, little crystal temple,
All air and otherness:

As if a form could thank its maker,
As if every line of light back to one source were drawn,
As if, deep in wilderness
A raftered hall rose around the risen guests,
All pains purged from their faces . . .

As it is on earth, Lord, not in heaven.
On earth, and in a house whose walls are song.
Even the birds, even the littlest, fearless.
O Lord, to live so long . . .

Forgive me this, forgive what I am saying.
Whisper it, less than whisper, like someone praying.

— Osip Mandelstam
(March 15, 1937)

(you can see more poems I love to not hate here)