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Poetry For Radical Insight

Poetry is more than just a pleasant diversion, or at least it can be. It can open your mind's eye to see things previously unseen. It can get you past the concepts and words that sometimes blind you. It can produce radical insight.

How does it do this? By using words in such a way that they "bypass" the normal speech processing parts of your brain. This has to do with the words chosen, the form of the poem, and the rhythm. We know that the words of a song are processed in a different part of the brain than spoken words. Poetry does something similar.

This certainly doesn't mean that all poetry will result in some new way of seeing, or some radical new insight. In fact, many poems are not designed in a way that will change your thinking. Poetry can be just a sharing of experience, and enjoyed as such.

But there are some types of poems that do more. Let's look at a couple of them.

Haiku Poetry

Haiku is a classic Japanese poetry form. It is supposed to have three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. More importantly, it typically uses words to directly point at some aspect of nature or the seasons. An example:

Northern Wilderness

Rocky hills and snow
Evergreens cling to the cliffs
Leaves dance in the air

Generally adjectives are not used. The result is that the reader is directed to consider the "scene" created without evaluating it or even thinking about it too much. This is good training for observing things more clearly and without prejudice.

In fact, if you want to do an interesting experiment, stand quietly outside with some natural scene before you, and describe it like a Haiku. Simply look and label what you see without description, value judgments or even further thought. You'll probably have a different experience from the way you normally see things. You are using words to "point" at things for observation rather than thinking of them in terms of ideas.

Our thoughts are normally there - consciously and unconsciously - when we are observing things. All that we see can be affected or distorted by these thoughts. For example, the beauty of a rainy day is often hidden by a subtle unconscious thought like "gloomy." Haiku is one way to get past that.

Radical Poetry

Poetry also can introduce us to new ideas or new perspectives. Though we could often express the same thoughts as an essay or statement, the rhythmic nature of the poem makes them more memorable. An example:

I Am Not This Poem

This body is not me,
Nor am I this mind;
Nothing you are looking for,
Nor anything you'll find.

Feelings, thoughts pass through me,
But they are not my home.
And yes, I write these words,
But I am not this poem.

The writer could have told you, "One's identity is not a body, brain, feelings, or thoughts." He could have elaborated on this, questioning what we think of as our "self." That kind of intellectualism has its place. But a poem is sometimes a more powerful way to grab your attention and inspire you to think: "I am not this poem."

A good speaker can motivate people with the same message that has left them uninspired before. That's the power of charisma. And it is interesting how often rhyme and rhythm are used by good speakers, including politicians. Perhaps we can say that some poetry is a type of charismatic thought.

Read the following very fast:

A Dog In The Sun

"Philosophy rolled in like a fog, saying that life is complex or that life is simple, but complexity was simplified to explain itself and simplicity was complexified to make its point, and confusion multiplied while a dog slept in the sun and the philosophers who saw it from the corners of their arguments felt that a secret slept with it but alas, the dog was only enjoying the warmth of the sun and the words were only enjoying their fun and even though the philosophers felt it in their hearts, there were no hidden secrets here at all except, perhaps, that philosophers have hearts."

The impression created (hopefully) is of a swirling confusion of ideas, with a dog basking in the sun as the still center or "truth." The simile "philosophy rolled in like a fog," creates the impression that words and theories can obscure rather than make things clear. The rhythm then sucks you along before you can argue against this idea. That's important, because normally it's common to be immediately critical of an idea rather than follow it to see what truth it may point to. Again, this is how poetry bypasses the "reasoning" part of the brain to show us something more directly.

Poetry Insight Exercise

Write a poem of at least three lines. Try to have at least one line that "grabs" the reader and suggests something which would normally be explained in many more words. Example: "He gained wisdom in the loss of false knowledge."

Until next time,

Steve

www.RadicalNewThoughts.com