282. Worldly Language- 3 Poetry
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| The language of poetry does not attract crowds |
One of the things that attracts me instinctively to the
bible is its language- sheer poetry!
No, this is not the moment for poets far and wide to fling
their hats up in the air and shout: hip, hip, hurrah because the poetry of the
bible has nothing to do with the stanza, rhyming, verse and so on that you find
in classical or modern poetry.
If people talked, conversed, greeted you with the language
of poetry as we know it today, we would look at them cross-eyed and wonder if
they had gone bonkers.
Yet the bible uses poetry to communicate, but it is the
poetry that is inherent in the language of the vernacular, the language that
the people spoke with at the time... The Sermon on the Mount is not “verse” as
set out by the canons of what makes up a
poem, yet it is poetry. It is poetry because it flows, it is pleasing
to sound, it fulfils, it enlightens... it does everything that poetry does
except that it uses the language of everyday speech.
Poetry today may be beautiful or ugly, may be ponderous, may
be insightful, may be whatever you want it to be but it isn’t normal speech,
like the Sermon on the Mount; it is a language apart, it is not one you could
use to converse with over a cup of coffee or a pint with your friends- the
Sermon on the Mount is.
To me a language that sets apart rather than unite, is a surplus
language, a language that makes you cringe rather than attract is to be
relegated to the trash bin. The normal
reaction to poetry from most people is to shun it. So, just as there is a revolution in
communication among celebrities, so there should be among poets and the language
of poetry... a return to the origin of meaning- I believe that is worth
thinking about because
the language used in poetry today does not attract
crowds- the Sermon on the Mount did.
