CURRENT: 36 °F Partly sunny
TODAY: High 44°F; Low 19°F. Becoming sunny; cold.
TOMORROW: High 38°F; Low 18°F. Mostly sunny and cold.


Group celebrates MLK

Council to study lobbyist law

Wording of parent survey riles some teachers

Carrboro names first sidewalk projects

Death notices

Concerns center on parking

Chess prodigies are masters of the game

Bird store readies perch in north Chapel Hill

Celebrations


Preps Boys Basketball coverage

Preps Girls Basketball coverage

Figuring on success

Wildcats crush Southern Alamance to cap 'great' week

East Chapel Hill boys bounce back strong

Recruiting is still the key

Names & notes


The long and short of Lear

Community Dinner a window on diversity

Reckless red-light runners


Village Voices by Carol Henderson

Neighbors


One for the record

King deserves more recognition

Mission to Mars propels the imagination

Read a poem and allow yourself to wonder

Letters to the editor


Web sights


Strikes and spares on Franklin Street

Confidence in the flow

Affinity for fish

Ticks in time

Look to the future but remember past

Climbing the walls

Seasonal work

Birdies and buzzards swirl and sway

Santa, for real

Assembly honors Bill of Rights

Kids honor ancestry with Kwanzaa celebration

Loading up the Christmas tree

Grinchus by any other name

Welcome to 'Roy Williams Live'

Store puts the emphasis on sharing, not spending

Dressing for Thanksgiving

A smashing success

A horse, saint and kids take to the street

Two-wheeling fire fighters

Up a creek with micro-critters

The Music (repair) Man

'No chicken, no show'

75,000 spooks may take over the streets

Pint-sized chef cooks up a winner

Elementary, my dear Watson

A wagon full of tales

From fast lane to nature walk

Twist and shout

A heavenly day for dachshunds

Blessing of the animals

And the music goes round and round

Teen endures the test of reality

Agricultural Festival caps 250 years

The Boss roars through town

Hazel's fury shocked Chapel Hill

A political inspiration

Do-gooder in a black hat

Prog rock has its day

Martian memories

'It's time to wake this place up'

Swimming with dogs

Aspiring scientist has eye on the sun

Pipe cleaner goes to work on church organ

No slowing down

Directions for navigating life on UNC campus

The challenges of listening and hearing

Angels on wheels

Evening time is the time to play

Harry Potter fans act out

As rural as they get

More lifestyle than job

A fine day for ducks

From legalities to landscapes

Exploring the origins of life

Harry Potter magic is music to booksellers' ears

Spirit of the Irish

Girl's letter wins her a visit to Congress

Art evolves along greenway

Buy a soldier a steak

Billion-dollar man

Owl family inspires awe

Calvander: 'Still a good community'

Lunch in the lawn

Opportunity of a lifetime

'I chose to do good'

Academic regalia rules on graduation day

Dancers defy laws of physics

Flowery message for moms

Writing the book on leadership

She saws saw tunes on singing saw

UNC student confronts AIDS reality

These students really dig trees

Animals and kids strut their stuff

Row, row, row your boat -- quickly

Youthful gambits

Would-be stars come out in Chapel Hill auditions

A new generation of von Trapps

Young protesters paid a price

Music in the air

Playing with switches and sticks

It's elementary

Moving out of the zone

Cello concert at The Cave

Things go bump in the night

South Square squashed

Ernest about his work

Reliving Valley Forge

Flea circus hops onto center stage

Quaffing and laughing

Intestinal fortitude

'A well-respected family'

Festival celebrates creation of Middle Earth

Black history in song

Baking and bonding

Finding their way through words

At the hip-hop

Itinerant barber combines trade, travel

Everything but a winning score

Oratorical tribute to MLK

Cookie sale kick-off

Rolling with a positive attitude

'Country mouse' feels at home in Chapel Hill

A new look added to University Mall

Couple shares love of past

Birders' holiday

Kids dish out international cuisine

All lit up

The voice of the storm

Center of the storm

Storm whittled away at town's famous trees

Following in ancient footsteps

Once more, with feeling

Gifts that keep on giving

'Star of Bethlehem' gets upgrade

Time is up for old West House

Wish Tree lights up the holidays

'I see myself in them'

Josie does it all

Precinct with a view

Italian masters blow glass treasures

Night at the Apollo ‘was a blast’

Town honors its canine officers

The mountain man from Chapel Hill

Taking to the Open Road

Canine contenders

Student finds her niche with the elderly

'Kindness covers his scars'

The sounds of rain forests and salsa

Shopping for college

Through a glass, brilliantly

Campus DJ keeps 'em spinning

The water man

Ceremonies bring the community together

Election madness: 1722

Getting ready for fiesta

Driving while goggled

Long legs, hints of kiwi

Retiree completes bicycle odyssey

Search current site for:
Search archives:

Published: Friday, January 16, 2004

Read a poem and allow yourself to wonder
My view

Patrick Herron

Like many of you, I do not believe I understand poetry exactly. After encountering thousands of poems in my life, I am fairly certain I don’t quite fully get this poetry business. I do have my own rough idea of what it is, however.

Some of you don’t think you quite get poetry, but you do. You already understand it, perhaps in your own way, but you probably already have a good idea.

Have you ever had a teacher who professed (with the best of intentions, of course) that your understanding of a poem was wrong?

Phooey!

Even the so-called best readings of any poem are hopelessly incomplete. No one really ever knows.

So what exactly is the point of reading this confusing word-stuff called poetry? Why bother to read a poem if you can never get it exactly right? Why do you need it?

I’m the first person to tell you that you don’t need poetry, that it’s pointless. You don’t need poetry. Therefore poetry is pointless; it’s unnecessary. There. I said it.

Maybe you’re practical, so pointlessness is strictly out for you.

Many of us go to the gym or go running. Why not exercise something less physical but just as important?

Consider poetry to be exercise for the heart and brain.

Just as exercise helps people physically move, poetry pushes the boundaries of everyone’s ability to understand, to think.

You may have to answer questions when reading poetry. But they’re your questions. And there may be no correct answers. Your answers may just be as right as anyone else’s.

Many of you are familiar with the opening stanza of William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

C’mon pal. Do tigers actually burn? Are you kidding me? What are “forests of the night”? What is an “immortal hand or eye”? What is a “fearful symmetry”?

Start reading the poem by making some guesses. Don’t worry about being correct — being correct is beside the point.

“Burning bright”? Well, a tiger can be bright orange. Yes, OK. Sounds good to me. Maybe the tiger’s soul or heart is burning? We’ve heard of a burning heart before? As if it’s full of vigor, full of life, full of will. Yeah, hey, that sounds pretty good.

Let’s see, then. “Forests of the night”? Here’s this tiger running around at night. It’s pretty bright and stands out in the darkness, maybe? The tiger is somehow a yin to night’s yang perhaps. But wait — a tiger can be pretty dangerous animal, can’t it? Here’s the beautiful living creature with its burning soul supposedly different from the danger of the night, but then it’s dangerous, too. What sort of God creates such a dangerous but beautiful creature?

Hmm, let’s see, what’s next? The poem asks, “What immortal hand or eye” . . . immortal? What’s immortal? Oh, God. Right. Hey, we’re getting the hang of this.

Like exercise, reading a poem can be painful at times. No pain, no gain. But there’s a literary equivalent of the runner’s high tucked away, that moment of everything sort of just falling together. Snowflakes collect together at rest on the ground and we call it snow.

And that’s just it. The best poems come together for us like snowflakes into a blanket of snow.

How can snow be so cold and so beautiful?

Never mind the correct answer.

Poems have questions we can never answer, yet poems somehow manage to provide us with understanding, an understanding that has no further explanation.

Call it a spiritual revelation.

Some call it wonder.

When we wonder, we cannot explain our wonder exactly. Wonder allows us to somehow feel as if we have been able to tie together fragments of the struggles of daily living into something awe-inspiring.

Snow. A tiger.

Wonder feels like an embrace of things that cannot be embraced with a pair of arms. The invisible weightless arms of wonder cannot be improved by lifting weights. But they can be exercised by reading poetry.

Wonder has nothing to do with being correct or incorrect. You already know what wonder feels like.

Read a poem today and exercise your wonder. Wonder. At a beautiful song. At far away constellations in the darkest night. At the person you love breathing next to you. At how life can give us this song, these stars, that breath, and all of it fleeting, momentary. It just might be pointless, but then …

This is the wonder, the tiger burning bright in the forests of the night.

Read a poem and wonder.

Patrick Herron is Carrboro’s poet laureate; you may find some of his poetry at www.proximate.org/works.htm. Come hear him read his poetry, along with Duke’s Joe Donahue, at Sizl Gallery in Carrboro on Thursday at 8 p.m. Admission is free.


newspaper information
About The Chapel Hill News
Feedback

online services
Announce your wedding
Announce your engagement
Obituary Form

advocate classified
classified.triangle.com

shopping

Back To School







advertisement