Finding joy in poetry

Times Past

Jonathan Smyth

Poetry can put into words what we cannot easily explain. It does it much better than many other kinds of writing. Five years ago, we were in turmoil when the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the planet. We found ourselves in lockdown, which was just as horrible as the virus itself.

Irish people are naturally sociable and it seemed like utter nonsense not being able to give grandparents a hug or shake hands with people. But the advice was intended to protect ourselves and the ones we love.

The scary news reports from Italy and China were enough to put the frighteners on the toughest. All that hand washing and cleaning down of grocery packages with disinfectant sprays created panic among vulnerable people. The unknown can be scary, especially when the experts did not have a logical answer.

People, who could, began working from home. Home became our office, cocooned away from the world at large, this was indirectly hard on many a person. Especially for older people, lockdown was a cruel experience and, in nursing homes, it was a sentence for people who looked forward to the regular visits of family and friends. It was enough to send you off your rocker, as they used to say.

Advances in technology took the edge off things a little and Skype, Teams and Zoom allowed us to communicate and stay in touch. Traditionally, churches are a place of refuge, and Mass too moved online. To every fear, we needed an antidote to keep us sane - even if that solution was artificial.

Most TVs in homes now have YouTube and, during lockdown, on those evenings, I discovered a new interest - listening to poetry. I found the poems online, read by pleasant voices. Poems set to atmospheric music and documentaries about the poets were a great distraction from the news. They took you away from the negativity of the times. One of the best voices on YouTube I ever heard to read poetry was of a man calling himself Tom O’Bedlam. He read everything, Yeates, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Seamus Heaney, George Herbert, and Kavanagh. You name it, he read it.

The magical words of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Less Travelled’ are exceptionally fine and I discovered Charles Bukowski whose realistic but raw, sometimes cynical take on life was exactly right during a pandemic. Bukowski tells no holds barred stories about himself. He talked of the day he walked down a street in Los Angeles and entering a bar, a glass flew in his direction, followed by a chair.

Bukowski the rebel said something like ‘hell, I thought to myself, this is my kind of place!’ But not the sort of place any of us would like to frequent.

Bukowski wrote in a style called ‘poetic realism’ and he does describe things as they really are. He will use blunt language to do so. An example is his cynical poem ‘What Can We Do?’

What Can We Do?

At their best, there is gentleness in Humanity.

some understanding and, at times, acts of

courage

but all in all it is a mass, a glob that doesn't

have too much.

it is like a large animal deep in sleep and

almost nothing can awaken it.

when activated it's best at brutality,

selfishness, unjust judgments, murder.

what can we do with it, this Humanity?

nothing.

avoid the thing as much as possible.

I really liked Robert Frost’s philosophical ways expressed in ‘The Road Not Taken’. We all have choices to make in life and this poem demonstrates the matter.

The Road Not Taken

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

But what is a poem? Perhaps Frost summed it up best when he said: ‘A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.’

Post-pandemic, I still enjoy poetry. I have begun reading the work of a Leitrim poet whose writings perfectly capture life’s fleeting moments. Kevin McManus authors poems that remind us of what we think we have forgotten, but with a quick nudge, memories soon surface. At present, I am enjoying his current book, ‘A Cold Wind From the Lake’ which he dedicated to his late father, Kevin McManus senior (1939-2024).

I certainly liked his poem, ‘As I close my eyes’, from his current collection because it shows reverence for those who go on to their eternal reward before us, It permits us to remember them. We should always hold a special place for family and dear friends who are now no longer travelling on life’s road, and I highly recommend this book. Congratulations must go to Kevin McManus. Now, I should mention that Kevin is a prolific award-winning author whose output includes many fine novels too, and an anthology of short stories. His eighth novel ‘Darkness at the Edge of Town’ will soon be in the shops.

As I close my eyes

As I close my eyes one final time

On this mortal world

As I look upon you no more,

As I hear my last breath ebbing,

Your touch on my hand softening,

Your voice fading.

Do not cry for me,

For I will reawaken in the brightest of mornings,

With the warm sun on my face

A cool breeze through the trees,

And the most beautiful of birdsongs in the air.

I will again see the smile of my father,

Hear the laughter of my mother,

I will be in everlasting peace.

And I will prepare a place for you.