Why Poetry Matters

The world is too much with us: late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.

--William Wordsworth (“The World Is Too Much With Us”)

I have never been good at small talk. I sometimes experience physical pain at cocktail parties and so-called “networking” events, as I try to feign interest in what some self-important person has to say about yawn-inducing stuff that is destined not to matter or be remembered. I tend to talk very little at these events and try to leave early. When I am lucky, I find a kindred spirit, someone who shares my disdain for triviality, who believes that life is too short to ignore that which makes life worth living; someone who shares my passion for the world of ideas and would rather discuss religion and philosophy, history and politics, or something really important, like baseball. It is a rare moment, it seems, when serious conversations occur, when we genuinely reflect with each other on ideas and notions that touch the human spirit, or endeavor to address the world’s problems. “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” This inspirational statement, urged by the character of John Keating in Dead Poets Society, is why I write these essays. I do not always have the answers and sometimes have the wrong ones, but at least I ask the questions. It is my attempt, however feeble, to develop deeper insight into the diversity of life.

I do not suggest that we must always be serious. God only knows that we need a little more light-hearted humor in this world. Laughter, especially the gut-wrenching, roll-over-and-fall-down variety, is an essential human emotion that makes us feel alive. Sometimes we need a little more Rodney Dangerfield and a little less quantum physics. (Rodney Dangerfield grabs his necktie and jerks his head, his eyeballs popping out of his face. I don’t get no respect, no respect at all. The other day I went to see my psychiatrist and he told me I was crazy. I said, "I want a second opinion." He said, “You’re ugly, too!”). But, as Yogi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be. . . . It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility. . . . Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

Let’s face it, being human is a difficult and complex endeavor. We do what we must to earn a living, take care of our families, and meet our financial obligations. But we often forget or ignore the things that should demand more of our time and attention. When we engage with the beauty of our surroundings, explore the miracles of science and nature, and open our minds to great works of art, we more meaningfully connect with our humanity. It is why I so like baseball which, for me, like good drama and great literature, captures the emotions and passions of my youth.

It is easy to ignore the majesty of the world around us, to become caught up in our day-to-day struggle to master an ever more competitive world, the demands of work and the pressures of life. The world has a way of beating us down that, over time, causes us to appreciate less the intricacies of life and the wonders of nature; the red-wing blackbirds nesting in the oak tree bordering the fence in my backyard, or the playfulness of the squirrels climbing and jumping from tree-to-tree in search of food. It is not our ability to sell a new product or land a new contract that makes our lives meaningful. Instead, science and theology, poetry and the study of history, art and music, genuine human interaction, these are the ways we share in the great human quest for truth and understanding.

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances,” Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” Physicist and astronomer Adam Frank, who writes for National Public Radio’s Cosmos and Culture, asks, “When that eventual moment comes and we prepare to slough off this mortal coil, will we be able to look at our years on the planet and feel that we created real meaning for ourselves and those around us?” Frank suggests that being aware of the wonders of the universe, to the mysteries of science and the beauty of the natural world, are what help us to feel alive:

[T]he process of trying to honestly enter into a dialogue with the world establishes a context for my own life that sometimes allows me to rise above the petty day-to-day squabbles of broken washing machines and general knuckle-headedness. By entering into that dialogue with great effort and earnestness, the world ceases to be something merely “at hand,” something merely there for distraction or entertainment.

Instead, it’s fully alive and present. The ever-opening sky, the wheeling stars and even the nightly stream of crows I watch heading to their evening roosts all become poignant mysteries that speak of greater powers than I will ever fully understand.

Like many professional people of my generation, my work and career are important to me. It is, after all, how I spend the majority of my waking hours. But as the years progress, I am less tolerant of competitive, ambitious, get-out-of-my-way people, interested only in self-aggrandizement, the size of their bonus, and landing the next big contract. I have observed clients, former classmates and colleagues work 70 to 80 hours a week for companies and firms that produce nothing of value. Sales targets, quotas, revenue origination, become the measured worth of the individual. The world of ideas, of passion and poetry, is something for which many have little time or interest.

“Being human is never easy,” writes Umair Haque, a refreshingly innovative thinker who authors a blog for the Harvard Business Review. “Perhaps as an unintended consequence of our relentless quest for more, bigger, faster, cheaper, now, we’ve comfortably acceded to something akin to a minor-league contempt for the richness and grandeur of life unquenchably meaningfully well lived.” Technological advancements have made the U.S. workforce 25 times more productive than it was 100 years ago. And yet, more and more jobs are moved offshore as companies hoard record profits; in the process, we seem to have produced a shortage of, in Haque’s words, “living, breathing, well-rounded humans; with a moral compass, an ethical core, a cosmopolitan sensibility, and a long view born of historicism. What we’ve got plenty of are wannabe-bankers whose idea of a good life goes about as far as grabbing for the nearest, biggest bonus – what we’ve got less of are well-rounded people with the courage, wisdom, and capacities to nurture and sustain a society, polity, and economy that blossom.” We need more people who can master the art of “nuance, subtlety, humility, and grace.”

Perhaps we need more poetry and less measuring sticks, more reflection and less cold, calculating reaction. Our politics have become mean-spirited, lie-induced, nightly responses to an increasing alienation infecting the populace. Our businesses and corporations have become impersonal, button-pushing, computer voice-overs that sacrifice human beings to save three cents on the dollar or to earn an extra 0.5% return on investment. Poetry, like literature, art, and music, provides “a language adequate to our experience,” explains poet and writer Jay Parini, author of Why Poetry Matters (Yale University Press, 2009). “It teaches us how to live our lives, how to locate and describe the inner life. . . . enhances our sense of the spiritual world by attaching us closely—almost physically—to the material world. . . . [and] refreshes our lives by refreshing our sense of language, making reality visible in unique ways.” Without poetry, Langston Hughes may never have written, “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

Poetry helps us to clarify and make sense of things, to see things in a more perfect light. Hopkins described poetry as “common language heightened,” for it refines the language of ordinary life. To ignore the power of poetry is to be indifferent to all of the things that make life worthwhile. “Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history,” said Aristotle, “for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

I realize that poetry doesn’t matter to most people. Admittedly, I am neither a poet nor a student of poetry. But I understand its importance, even if I don’t practice its art. Perhaps if we paid closer attention to the poets, we would have less tolerance for war, torture, and human depravity. “To have good sense,” wrote Horace, “is the first principle of writing well.” When I see my youngest daughter write poetry as a means of making sense of a chaotic world, and of expressing herself in ways and on topics she otherwise refrains from discussing, I see firsthand its power to transform. Poets, like writers of great literature and composers of powerful and emotionally compelling music, give us context, language and meaning. Poetry has the power to open minds and alter lives. In a world without poetry, we would cease to be fully conscious of the possibilities that life affords.

Ultimately, poetry, like science, theology, art, and philosophy, is a quest for understanding, a striving for excellence. By reaching for a higher plane and challenging our assumptions, we remain attentive and awake to the everyday miracle of our existence. “Let us remember,” said Christian Wiman of Poetry magazine, “that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.”

Eat Bananas and Follow Your Heart: An Imaginary Commencement Address

I have never been asked to deliver a commencement address, an honor typically reserved to those who have achieved great public acclaim. But if ever I was asked, I probably would say something like this:

Congratulations to the Class of 2010. You are young and beautiful and full of life. You may not think so, but trust me, when you look back at your photographs thirty years from now, you will look in amazement at how young and truly beautiful you are. My heart goes out to you.

I sat in your place 29 years ago, pressed between 500 graduates, each of us uncertain of our future and unaware of our destiny, during an uninspired time in our nation’s history. The generation before had bequeathed us Vietnam and race riots, the dethronement of Camelot and the murder of a King, Kent State and Watergate, gas lines and oil embargoes, the Iranian Hostage Crisis and Three Mile Island. Ronald Reagan was our new president, elected on an anti-government platform that devalued public service. Consistent with the day’s prevailing sentiments, I chose practicality over passion, with business school in my immediate future. After accepting my degree, I departed the commencement stage unmindful of the tortuous paths my life would soon take.

Much has happened since that warm June day in 1981. However grateful I am for the joys and opportunities life has bestowed, I remain, in some ways, the same insecure student unsure of his direction in life, as apprehensive today as when I hugged my classmates goodbye. It is too soon for history to judge my generation, to know if we have built lasting legacies and positively contributed to future generations. For me, the final chapter has yet to be written. I envy that you begin today with fresh chalk and a clean slate, an unwritten tablet upon which to carve your story. The future is yours.

Any advice I divulge should be taken lightly, for in the words of the great philosopher Groucho Marx, “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” So to America’s future I present here a few slivers of wisdom collected through the years, offered with a strong dose of humility and a hint of hopefulness:

Eat bananas. This may be the best advice I will ever give you. Bananas are high in potassium and good for your heart and nerves, kidneys and bones; a great source of vitamin B6, bananas are good for your blood; and they are a great source of dietary fiber. So, if you remember nothing else, listen to me about the bananas.

Follow your heart. Your time here is limited. Don’t waste it trying to live someone else’s life, or someone else’s dream. Don’t let the noise of other people’s thinking drown out your own inner voice.

Be at peace with your own mortality. Embrace it. Death is the only certainty in life, a destiny we all share. No one, not kings or noblemen, presidents or sports stars, has ever escaped it. Trust me on this, even more than on the bananas. Life is short and moves quickly. Maintaining an awareness of your mortality can help with the big choices in life. Steve Jobs, who a few years back confronted and overcame cancer, wisely noted during a real commencement address at Stanford University in 2005: “Everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way . . . to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Follow your heart, but don’t completely ignore your head. Pursue your dreams, but fulfill your obligations. Understand the importance of real income, but do not devalue your psychic income – the level of satisfaction derived from a job. Many of life’s decisions are dictated by money – how much you have, how much you need, how much you owe. Money is, for most of us, a major influence in our choice of careers, where we live, and the number of children we have. I cannot tell you that money does not matter. It does. But look around and you will see that some of the happiest people in the world are teachers and public servants, artists and musicians, journalists and directors of non-profits, aid workers and clergy, people who forsake more lucrative careers for the sake of a satisfying life. Some of the most frustrated, unhappy souls are those who pursue careers for money and status and nothing more. Between European vacations and rounds of golf are dysfunctional lives torn asunder by the devastating knowledge of a life wasted.

This is not always the case, of course. Some people are very content with money. As Russian born actress and singer Sophie Tucker once said, “I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Believe me, honey, rich is better!” Money provides freedom and security. It provides for your family. Absent a revolution – and I don’t like your odds if you’re contemplating one – it is a necessary component of our social structure. But how much you need or want is determined by your values. Don’t be fooled into thinking it has anything to do with one's self worth or the worth of other human beings.

Never stop learning. You need not be in school to achieve a Master’s Degree in life. Expand your mind and push your limits. Turn off the television and pick up a book; write a poem; visit a museum; attend a play. Understand and use technology, but don’t lose touch with the traditional tools of learning – reading, writing, travel, study, and reflection. One of my favorite scenes in Dead Poets Society is when Robin Williams lectures his disinterested students on the importance of poetry:

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. . . . That you are here - that life exists . . . that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play “goes on” and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Be skeptical, not cynical. Ask questions. Be cautious of smooth talking salesmen and slick politicians. Avoid gullibility, but don’t assume that you always have the answers. You don’t.

Oppose smugness. To those of you blessed with good health, good looks, and good families, understand that this has as much to do with luck as with anything you ever did or will ever do. To those soon to be blessed with happy marriages, understand that others struggle with relationships. To those soon to be blessed with healthy children and seemingly safe lives, know that others will not be so lucky. Do not take your blessings for granted. Show concern to those for whom life has not been so kind; recognize that we all are a mere phone call away from walking in their shoes.

Don’t feel too guilty about everything. What we used to think of as vices – wine, coffee, and chocolate – turn out to be good for you.

Call your parents. Stay connected to the people you love. Stay in touch with your closest friends. When times get rough, when you falter and make mistakes – and you will – the unconditional love of a parent and the support of a true friend are among the few constants on which you can count. And if you are fortunate enough to have children of your own, you will come to truly understand what I just said.

Choose your role models carefully. Don’t be impressed with celebrity. Seek conversations and ideas, not autographs. A person’s value is defined by character, which has more to do with sincerity and the ability to love, listen, and learn from others, than with society’s attributions of glitz and glamour.

Don’t be afraid of uncertainty. Some of the most creative and intelligent people I know still aren't sure what they really want to do with their lives. What may be important to you today will undoubtedly change when you are older. No one has all the answers, and most who think they do are full of shit.

Keep laughing. It is good for the soul. Laughter is life’s best medicine, almost as good for you as bananas.

Show kindness. It is a sign of strength. Except for presidents, dictators, and Philadelphia sports fans, no one was ever criticized for showing compassion and reaching out to someone in need. The world needs more of this, not less. Never lose sight of our shared humanity. We are all in this thing together. It is not as easy for some as for others. Sometimes really bad stuff happens that throws the universe out of whack. Life is unfair, but it need not be unkind.

Stay engaged. Life is not for spectators. Mix it up a little and live in the arena. There is a small plaque on my mother’s kitchen wall that probably cost her fifty cents at a flea market, but which possesses great wisdom. It is a simply knitted picture of a sailboat floating at sea. The caption says, “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” Or as Babe Ruth once said, “Don’t let the fear of striking out hold you back.” Simple, corny words, but ones that deserve to be quoted on occasion, for only wise souls know when to apply them.

Strive to be happy. But understand that happiness is a journey, not a destination. If you can bring passion, joy, and optimism to your life, you will succeed. But understand that success is not how much money you make in life, or how many gadgets you acquire and cars you drive, or how many high-powered friends you accumulate. Success is being missed when you are no longer here and leaving something of value behind. If you touch the lives of others, if you make the world a better place, even a little; if you inspire a young child or make a difference in someone’s life, then you will have succeeded.

“Go placidly among the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.” There is a plaque on Old St. Paul’s Church in Baltimore that contains the words of the oft-quoted poem, “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann, a famous and beautiful writing, the words to which I never tire of reading. It ends thus:

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

But don’t forget the bananas.

On Seizing the Day and Unfulfilled Dreams

How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me. --Stanley Kunitz (“The Layers”)

I never knew my Uncle Ted. (In the picture above, he is standing in the second row at the end on the right hand side, the tallest of the bunch.) His plane and crew fell from the sky, shot down over Vienna on March 22, 1945. Ted was 21 years old at the time, the second oldest of three brothers, and the son of two loving parents. My father remembers Ted as mature and wise beyond his years; a kind and gentle man, somewhat shy and bookish, he had plans to attend college when the war was over, possibly to go on to seminary and become a Lutheran minister. Ted died a hero’s death, fighting for our freedoms, yet I cannot help but wonder what might have been – for Ted, and for the millions of young men who died in that war and the many others our nation has fought.

My Dad recalls a delightful spring Saturday in early April 1945. Only fifteen years old then, a high school sophomore, Dad had just finished baseball practice and was walking home from Lincoln High School a few blocks away. As he approached his family’s Jersey City row house, he noticed his father looking out the upstairs window. As he often did in those days, Dad tried to show off, flipping his glove into the air and catching it behind his back. With a smile on his face, he looked up at the second floor window, only to see his father walk away. There was something not right in his father’s reaction; it was as if his father had turned his back on him, as if my grandfather could not comprehend the frivolity of a spring afternoon and the joking escapades of his youngest son.

When Dad entered the house, he understood immediately. His parents, my grandparents, with tears in their eyes, explained that a telegram from the U.S. Department of the Army had just arrived, informing them that Ted’s B-24 had crashed over the hillsides of Vienna, Austria. As Ted’s body remained unidentified, he was officially listed as “missing in action.” One can only imagine the devastation and pain that such news brings, the likelihood, yet uncertainty, of your child’s death; compounded further by the fear that your other son – my Dad’s brother Warren, the oldest of the three sons, was in Okinawa – might yet receive the same fate. The news then reported from Japan was not good, and the distinct possibility existed of losing two sons in the same war.

Warren thankfully came home after the war; he would marry my Aunt Ann and live another 35 years, work a productive life, raise four children – my cousins – and celebrate 35 more Christmases, unwrapping presents by the tree. He would read books, debate politics, pray, laugh, cry, become exasperated at his sons’ exploits and proud of their accomplishments; he would experience life, the future, and the possibilities, dreams and disappointments of everyday existence.

Ted suffered a different, more tragic, if noble fate. My grandparents learned that two crew members in parachutes had jumped from Ted’s B-24, but only one man out of the ten-person crew was known to have survived. The others remained missing. My grandparents, and the parents of the other nine crew members, latched onto the sliver of hope that, maybe, just maybe, their son was the one in the other parachute. Over the next year, news accounts said that many unidentified military personnel who had survived the war had come back as amnesia victims. Gold Star parents – those who had lost a loved one in battle, or whose sons were deemed missing in action – received permission to walk through the wards of military hospitals in search of their sons. On many occasions over the next year, my Dad accompanied his parents – hoping against hope – that they would find Ted in one of the hospitals. My Dad has often said that he will never forget these experiences; the mixture of hope and desperation in his parents’ eyes; the compassion felt for the wounded soldiers lying in hospital beds, some of whom could not remember their past; the sympathetic expressions and attempts by these young men to provide clues and tidbits of wisdom to my grandparents. As my Dad reflected recently in a sermon he gave on biblical hospitality, this went on for more than a year:

Two words describe that fateful 15 months after the crash before my brother’s body was found and identified. They are “hope and hospitality.” My parents – especially my mother – always felt that Ted would come walking in the front door someday. In her own way, she prepared for that delightful moment by keeping his clothes cleaned and ready for him while secretly planning a “welcome home” party. Even after Ted was declared legally dead a year later, my parents still looked for him in the Bowery in [New York City], the “tenderloin district” in Philadelphia, and other urban cities where the homeless gathered, and she soon started the practice of carrying small packages of food to distribute to many of those who appeared without hope. No matter what – both hope and hospitality kept my parents going.

There is a Latin phrase, carpe diem, made famous in the movie Dead Poets Society, which translated means “seize the day”. The phrase comes from Horace, in Odes Book I: Dum loquimur, fugerit invida Aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero: “While we're talking, envious time is fleeing: seize the day, put no trust in the future.” Whether or not intended for young men going off to war, it is a warning that, unless you make the most of life now, you may never have the chance to experience life in all its dimensions. To feel love and loss, joy and pain, all of the things that allows us to know we are alive. Too often, we muddle through our daily routines focused on the task at hand, failing to inhale life, to live in the moment and appreciate the uniqueness of each day. For each moment that passes is forever lost in time.

When I think of Ted and his unfulfilled dreams and passions lost, I question whether I have really embraced the opportunity to ponder life and all its wonder. Have I breathed deeply and smelled the fresh scent of a rosebud on a spring morning? Have I appreciated the sun as it breaks through the crisp winter air, the blue sky painting the background, laced with cotton-like white clouds? Have I examined the moon on a clear night, searched for the constellations in the expanse of the universe, or appreciated the peacefulness of a silent snowfall?

Ted was one of over 416,000 Americans who died in World War II, a war in which the world suffered 60 million deaths. I am immensely proud of my Uncle Ted and all of his compatriots who fought in that war. Until a greater national cause arrives upon the American scene, Ted and his cohorts will remain the Greatest Generation. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote in The Insecurity of Freedom (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1959), “Freedom presupposes the capacity for sacrifice.” Ted and his crewmates sacrificed so that we may carry on in a free and prosperous land, so that we may experience life. On my wall is a framed certificate of recognition from President Harry Truman, honoring Ted’s death. On it is written:

He stands in the unbroken line of patriots who have dared serve to die that freedom might live, and grow, and increase its blessings. Freedom lives, and through it, he lives – in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men.

When I think of Ted and the sacrifice he paid, I feel the humility to which President Truman referred. As it pains me to consider what might have been, there is comfort in believing that, in our freedom, Ted and his band of brothers continue to live. Yet as I write, on Christmas Eve, part of the world prepares to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. I cannot help but consider the dichotomy of our existence, the hypocrisy of our actions as a people. There is a part of me that insists on asking whether Ted, and the other valiant and courageous young men who died and fought alongside of him, were victims – of the failure of humanity and the incapacity of the human heart. I have acknowledged more than once that war is sometimes necessary – as it no doubt was in Ted’s lifetime – but no one will ever convince me that war is anything but inherently evil.

Hold fast to dreams / For if dreams die / Life is a broken-winged bird / That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams / For when dreams go / Life is a barren field / Frozen with snow. --Langston Hughes (“Dreams”)

Here is wishing all a time of peace and dreams fulfilled; seize the day and make the most of life, always recognizing those who have sacrificed for our freedoms, whose lives were abruptly and unfairly cut short, their dreams unfulfilled. As Heschel noted, “Modern man continues to ponder: What will I get out of life? What escapes his attention is the fundamental, yet forgotten question: What will life get out of me?”