The beauty of Poetry

Poetry. What does it mean to you? Were you the person at the back of the class who hated it; or did it open your mind to new ways of thinking and even new ways of living?

Well, for me, poetry was, and still is the latter. I've always been a fan of words and the way in which a particular construct of words, i.e a sentence (the word 'sentence' doesn't do the marrying of words justice, in my opinion, thus I avoid it!) can provoke different reactions in different people. I'm not ashamed to say, that Rupert Brooke's poem; 'The Soldier' struck a chord and left a deep impression inside the fifteen year old that I was the first time I heard it - although many see the poem as a call to arms and glorification of war, if I was Brooke, I would too hope that my sweetheart would think of me as the sweeping plains of rural England, my body may well be broken and destroyed, yet I remain the man I always was in life, in the minds of those who knew me best. There is something magical in the thoughts of others, I hear myself in all of my favourite poems; I assume this is because they connect with me, but maybe I connect with the poet and his ideas, his philosophies, and certainly his zest for life.

There are always people who seek to degrade the art of poetry as 'words on a page' or 'pompous wordplay' but I see it as a completely genuine and beautiful form. Its' features are true and honest; nothing obstructs the way in which the words which fill a poet's mind flow, or rather spill onto a page. Of course, now we have the internet, the 'page' begins to lose popularity in favour of the screen - though for me, the tactile beauty of a book can never be replaced. Unfortunately, the internet has actually destroyed the presentation of poetry; one can never view poems as some were meant to be, in a collect. Wordsworth and Coleridge's collection, 'The Lyrical Ballads' is one of my favourite books; however its' power and presence is in its true form as a book - the poems in isolation, do not work. Only when read in the context of the whole work, can they be truly appreciated. Some are weak, some are strong in their resolve, but what the book most offers me, is a delve into the minds of two great poets, or rather, two great friends, who fell apart in later years - the greed of Wordsworth and the intellectual and alternative prowess of Coleridge (who happens to be my favourite of the two; nothing to do with his Devonian roots... ahem.)

In later years, I became attached to the works of John Magee. A junior Pilot Officer in World War Two, Magee was nineteen; the same age as me. I think this was what partly drew me to Magee, but also, the strong RAF roots of my family and the way in which my family looks upon the RAF most likely had something to do with this. Tragically killed in an horrific accident, Magee's two works, 'Per Ardua Ad Astra' and 'High Flight' will forever be the bane to which the RAF rallies around when it needs to come together. Magee flew with an attitude that every Pilot in the RAF could relate to; that flight is a magnificent and life-changing process; bringing a Pilot closer to the rest of the universe, and further from the Earth. The 'wordsmithery' if I am allowed to call it that, of the poem, High Flight, makes me cry almost every time I hear it. Partly out of sorrow for Magee's loss, but mostly because I see a nineteen year old with dreams, hopes and ambitions, I also see a nineteen year old who had met God in a different way. The skies and flight had completed his life; his loss had not been in vain - thousands of people will have heard Ronald Reagan's speech to the nation of the United States of America in a time of great urgency and overwhelming sorrow. The tragic and untimely loss of the crew of Challenger; an explorative shuttle launched by NASA in 1986 led Reagan to make a speech that raised the hairs on the back of the most powerful nation on Earth. Reagan's heartfelt message (I am convinced this was not through his acting abilities) used Magee's poem to great effect. "I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth; reached out my hand, and touched the face of God", Reagan spoke in prophetic, hushed and calming tones, the words falling from his lips like tears flowing from the weary eyes of every American. A beautiful moment. One that extended this poem onwards, and forced its' beauty on those who did not usually defend poetry.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along,
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Magee


The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke