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by okdeon

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I’m gonna be teaching a poetry class next fall and one of the things I want to talk about is the uselessness of poetry and how that uselessness is essential.and I mean useless in the way a thistle is useless, or a mouse eating grain in a warehouse is useless, useless like dandelions are useless. I’m quoting Olga Tokarczuk but useless like a “large tree, crooked and full of holes, that survives for centuries without being cut down because nothing could possibly be made of it”. What can you make from poetry but more poetry? The poet alice notley tweeted: “why should poetry or anyone or anything do anything? But poetry is the art closest to existing itself. We are somewhat measurable, vibrate and tremble, and are beautiful”. This idea is really exciting to me, because in the world we live in, we are always expected to be making use of our time, working, networking, using self care to make sure we can work more. But that is difficult to make happen in poetry because it is really hard to make poetry do anything for money. It isn’t worth much to most people. This is a rare and important quality to have. uselessness seems like it is a luxury, but it’s not. It is essential to have something that survives because it is useless, or because its not easily made to be profitable. To quote Audrey Lorde, “poetry is not a luxury…. it is the vital necessity of our existence… poetry is the way we give name to the nameless so it can be thought“ We need these things that aren’t believed to be important because they don’t make money or are embarrassing to make . poetry is also one of the most accessible practices of expression—You don’t need money to make it, you don’t need an education.   you don’t need to be able to see, or read to make poetry, or hear. You don’t need to be able to speak a language.  Poetry exists in our bodies as something physical as much as it is mental. Emily Dickinson recognized poetry through her body— “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, then I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” The poet Chelsey Minnis, wrote “Poetry is for crap since there’s no money or fast cars in it… but, in the thighs… I feel it…” 

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photo Mimi Cherono Ng'Ok, untitled (Kenya), Dak'Art 2016

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From the past again

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