Poetry, Perhaps

I leaned back and gazed up at pinpoints of white against a velvety azure sky. Constellations rotated slowly, almost imperceptibly, above a baroque edifice ensconced with alabaster sculptures. The seat under me creaked, reminding me that this nighttime scene was an illusion, a theatrical imitation of a Moorish castle on a Mediterranean coast.  

Forgive me if I wax poetic today. I spent yesterday evening at the Akron Civic Theater with my ESOL students and a crowd of other teachers, students, administrators, and supporters of Project Learn of Summit County. Rita Dove—Akron native, Poet Laureate, and natural storyteller—entertained us for almost two hours with the story of her life punctuated by her poetry.

How can one woman, standing alone in front of a black curtain and behind a simple music stand, keep over a hundred people rapt in silence, but for the occasional gasp or reflexive laugh or burst of applause, for such a period of time? I'll tell you how:

On that plain black curtain behind her, Rita Dove evoked images of oat silos and summer nights, of family reunions and cheesy grits, of dancing and traveling and loving and exploring, of a little black girl with a library card and unfettered access to the world of books. She wove a tale of growing up in the Midwest as if it were the most perfect place to begin a life of magic and wonder and words. As if the fireflies and oats and rubber and canals were the stuff of fairy tales. She spoke of gratitude and an unending sense of awe. She spoke of an insatiable desire to learn, even now when her youth is a memory and her right knee is a constant reminder of the insistence of age. She spoke of the mysteries of the heart and of love. She spoke of loss and forgiveness, of family in all its many variations, of dark skin and bright colors, of fear and joy and pain and the uncountable pleasures of being alive.

Her words still ring in my ears this morning. But more than that, the images she painted with those words still hang before my eyes. They skipped and whirled through my dreams last night, leaving me breathless and disoriented today. I feel as though I've been on a long trip, and now my hometown—the same Midwestern town I've lived in for twenty-five years—is new and shining and full of history and mysteries just waiting to be discovered. The town is the same, but my eyes are different. They are different because of Rita Dove's words.

I've long believed in the power of words to change the world. Rarely, though, have someone else's words changed my inner world. Shakespeare, Poe, Twain, Malamud: these men's words changed the way I think of storytelling. Ms. Dove has changed the way I think of words in composition, words as creative exploration, words as powerful signifiers of complex emotion.

Anyone who knew me in grad school knows that I am not a huge fan of poetry. I have a stubborn fixation on Nonfiction, an intractable adherence to corroborative fact, and little patience for indulgent romanticism. Poetry always seemed like a way to avoid the rules of grammar, a way to seem profound without really saying much, a way to trick readers into feeling stupider than they are, so the poet can remain superior.

Rita Dove destroyed those prejudices of mine last night. Her clarity and simplicity of thought, coupled with her astonishing and deft use of imagery, showed me how poetry can elevate grammar, can solidify ephemera, can illuminate truth.

Perhaps I will write a poem today.