How Poetry Can Change Your Heart

by Andrea Gibson

  How often have you had a hard-held belief about a thing or group of people that completely changed as you received more insider experience? Perhaps you envisioned all drug-addicted people in one light, casting judgments upon them, until you met and connected with an addicted person yourself. What experiences have you had with people that eradicated your former ideas about them? Poetry can provide this same expanded insight by introducing you to people different from yourself, in their multidimensional tenderness, grit, and spark.

  In the age of Bluetooth, it can be argued that we’ve weakened our listening muscles. But poetry asks us always to listen, and listen closely. In showing up as witnesses to the lives and stories of others, we strengthen our ears and hearts. Though the process often awakens us to the fact that we have more in common than we thought, it also helps us celebrate, rather than fear, our differences. As Toni Morrison so beautifully stated in Song of Solomon, “I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would a loved ’em all. If I’d knowed more, I would a loved more.”

  While it may seem counterintuitive that feeling the weight of the entire world would lead to lightness, scientific studies find that increased empathy has incredible physical and mental health benefits.

  LET’S GUSH FOR A MOMENT ABOUT THE MAGIC OF LANGUAGE

  One of the reasons people flock to poetry like a blush of glittering birds is because of its unique handling of language. New images and surprising wordplay can tickle the brain and awe the spirit. It’s similar to the way a new cover of an old favorite song feels so good—you can settle in with the comfort of the lyrics, but delight in the freshness of voice, tempo, and sound. The words used in poetry are from the same lexicon you speak throughout your day, but arranged in a way that excites and intrigues.

  Let’s dive into the magic of poetic language.

  THE GREAT PARADOX

  One of the absolute coolest rules of writing is the Great Paradox, or, the fact that the more specific something is, the more universal it becomes. Say what? That’s right. The More Specific = The More Universal. The whole idea is counterintuitive. You would think that a simple statement such as “High school was really difficult for me” would touch everyone because of its broadness. But don’t the lines below reach you more?

  “I ate lunch every day in the nurse’s office.”

  or

  “I faked hay fever just to miss a week of high school.”

  Even if you never had these experiences, they evoke more emotion than the blanket statement.

  Here’s another: “I loved her so much it hurt.” Seems like something everyone can relate to, so why wouldn’t that be more effective than a specific story? Well, look:

  “I loved her so much I knew the longitude and latitude of each of her freckles. I could pinpoint her beauty marks from space.”

  or

  “I loved her so much I memorized

  the look on her face the first time

  she used my toothbrush.

  The next day I brushed my teeth 36 times

  because I didn’t want to let her go.”

  or

  “When he shall die,

  Take him and cut him out in little stars,

  And he will make the face of heaven so fine

  That all the world will be in love with night

  And pay no worship to the garish sun.”10

  Notice how the latter examples just make you feel more? One of the most poetic things a writer (or anyone) can do is pay attention to the miraculous details of life. That’s why so many poets carry notebooks to write their noticings down. Poetry is already there in the world— and it is up to the poet to lasso their pen around it. The microscopic details are everything!

  When asked about must-have tools for writers, the poet Kai Coggin advocated for “An open heart. A keen eye for observation that notices tiny nuances others would ignore. Courage.”

  10. Billy Shakes (aka William Shakespeare), Romeo and Juliet

  THE WORLD OF THE POEM

  Oftentimes a poet will solidify the theme or message of their piece by keeping their language and images in the same universe as the one the poem exists in. A poem occupies a certain landscape, and the word bank of that landscape can help accentuate the meaning.

  Huh?

  Say the poem is about a person’s brother going away to war and the sweater that the brother leaves behind. Even if that sweater felt exactly like a sheep, and a sheep was the most accurate thing to compare the sweater to, a sheep would not necessarily be the best metaphor. A sheep is not in the world of the poem. However, watch what happens to your brain and heart when you hear the following:

  His sweater was as soft as a silenced gun.

  His sweater was as soft as a single bugler playing taps.

  His sweater was as soft as a folded flag.

  Do you see how comparing the sweater to something within the poem’s world is much more effective than talking about a sweater that is soft like a cloud or a sheep? Do you see how comparing the sweater to something less obviously soft is also exciting and evocative? Or how the images of the flag or the gun are not necessarily pleasant but that ends up being a good thing for the poem because holding onto a sweater of someone who is gone is not an entirely soft feeling?

  On the flip side, “soft as a silenced gun” does not work if the poem is about the skin of a lover. In fact, that metaphor makes zero sense and would be distracting and kind of creepy in your love poem. But maybe the beloved’s skin is:

  soft like an acoustic song.

  soft like the bedsheets we never left.

  as soft as a love note kept in a pocket for thirty years.

  WordPLAY

  The most important part of “wordplay” is the second syllable: play. When poets, rappers, and songwriters utilize wordplay in their works, they are literally playing, having fun with language. The focus is on wit and amusement. The effect is delight.

  Perhaps you are writing a poem about cell-phone addiction and you want to try some wordplay. You might say, “My phone died, and now I don’t know how to FaceTime.”

  Try having fun with words yourself.

  Step 1: Think of a common turn of phrase—for example, “a short temper.”

  Step 2: Then pull one of the words out of that sentence and explore meaning, turning different definitions on their heads. For instance, you hear “short” and might think “stilts,” “limbo contest,” “coming up short,” “must be this tall to ride,” “can’t reach the tall shelves,” etc.

  Step 3: Then rearrange your thoughts until something titillates you. “My temper is so short it wins every limbo contest” or “I built stilts for my temper trying to be big enough for compassion.”

  Step 4: Repeat!

  CAN POETRY CHANGE THE WORLD?

  “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”

  —PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

  Throughout history, poems have been used as vehicles for social change. Did you know there are poets who write for the sole purpose of inspiring active participation in the fight for world justice? Their poems are both informative and emotional, unpacking the current political climate while shining a much-needed light on the many darknesses of the world. Topics can include LGBTQ+ rights, police brutality, sexual assault, and capitalism. You name a beast––there is likely a poet out there working to dismantle the machine that birthed it.

  Poetry has played a part in nearly every revolution in history. Political poems have been hollered at rallies, at protests, at pride events, in prisons, in treatment centers, in colleges, in churches, and more. You could even argue that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was itself a poem, as he undoubtedly used poetic device to heighten his message and captivate listeners:

  “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state swelte
ring with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

  —DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

  In the 1950s, four Jewish poets were brutally murdered in Moscow for their part in speaking out against fascism and WWII. The night of their deaths is commonly known as the “Night of the Murdered Poets.”

  Even if a poem is not directly political, reading a poem by a poet from a different background than yours can offer a feng shui renovation of the soul, rearranging the furniture of your world so that you can exist more peacefully, more wholly, and (in the unrighteous sense of the word) more holy. Staunchly held prejudices are the antithesis to growth, and unearthing and dismantling our own biases is a revolutionary act. If we were to feel more compassion, might there be less violence? Less poverty? Less war? Hate thrives in the presence of ignorance, and many poems are an education. Poetry is the anti-bomb, the anti-border. And, in a world where there is so much destruction, creation itself is medicine.

  People’s minds aren’t often changed quickly or easily, but people’s hearts can be changed in an instant, and therein lies the power of poetry to change the world. Poetry changes the heart, and in time the mind follows suit.

  WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW (OR DO YOU?)

  You could spend some time learning the elements of poetry.

  You can learn how metaphor (a direct comparison: “this year is a dumpster fire”) can be more powerful than simile (an indirect comparison using “like” or “as:” “This year is like a dumpster fire.”). But sometimes similes work better. (For example: “Your hair is as soft as a kitten” versus “Your hair is a kitten.” Nobody wants a cat for a wig.)

  You could learn about alliteration—the process of picking powerful repeated sounds to start each word stressing certain syllables for sonic pleasure. Or assonance—the repetition of vowel sounds can hound the playground of the mind without floundering.

  You could learn about rhyming or meter, or stressed and unstressed syllables, or those little marks that the teacher would make on the board—the //uu//uu// uu//uu shapes. You could truly and finally understand what “iambic pentameter” means and delight in it!

  Or you could decide that that was the part that made you a poetry-atheist and it isn’t for you. Whatever route you choose, great. There is no wrong way to experience and appreciate poetry.

  If you are interested in poetic devices and formats, here’s a visual breakdown:

  COUPLETS

  You could learn about couplets,

  or two-lined stanzas, which are perfect

  for when a poet is writing about

  two things: such as their parents,

  or two countries of origin, or a set

  of giggling twins, and it’s classic

  for poems about love to be written

  in couplets, as if each line is a lover

  nestled close

  to its beloved.

  TERCETS

  You could also study tercets,

  or stanzas composed of three lines,

  which are most often used when the poet

  is addressing three things. Most commonly

  poems about infidelity are written in tercets,

  as if the two lovers of the couplet

  are being crowded by a third, intrusive line,

  and it’s pretty amazing to know that just the form

  of the poem on the page can achieve so much!

  A poem about the Holy Trinity would be ideal

  for tercets, as would poems about tricycles,

  or Destiny’s Child.

  QUATRAINS

  Quatrain stanzas are comprised of four lines,

  which is traditional for a poem,

  and every other line rhymes

  so it almost feels like home.

  Consider this the tiniest school

  where you learn what form is all about

  because often it’s great to know the rules,

  so you know what you can throw out.

  LONG-LINED POEMS

  Long lines in a poem ask a reader to read the poem as fast as the outside world

  might pass through the glaze of a train window, so you may begin to notice

  that poems where everything happens quickly might use lines as long as the legs

  of a girl that left too soon, and if the poet wanted you to feel breathless, the way it felt

  when she actually left, they might eradicate line breaks and punctuation altogether and this is called form following content and if you are reading this aloud your voice might be getting smaller like a long-distance lover disappearing on a train headed away from your life together.

  See?

  SHORT-LINED POEMS

  But short lines

  in a poem

  ask a reader

  to slow down,

  to turtle down,

  to focus

  on the image,

  as if the mind

  is a telescope

  zooming in

  and out

  on one

  faraway star

  until it is as clear

  as if held close

  as a firefly

  in your palm,

  and can you hear

  how slow

  we are going now?

  As if the poem

  were pouring

  like honey

  in our ears

  drizzling down

  into the pots

  of our hearts,

  ready to hold

  so much

  sweetness.

  THE ART OF THE LINE BREAK

  Another little secret trick about reading

  or writing poetry is to pay attention to the line

  breaks, seeing how sometimes you can shift

  meaning, just by where you break

  the line or the stanza. It almost works

  as if the line could be read in two

  ways. And it can totally make a poem

  more interesting, enchanting.

  Say a poet is writing a poem about their first crush, and the line is, “The first time she asked me to come over to her house and watch a movie, I took off screaming.” Obviously this poem is exploring young sexuality. Imagine the lines broke like this:

  The first time

  she asked me to come

  over to her house and watch

  a movie, I took off

  screaming.

  Do you see all the sexual innuendos that are made just by breaking the lines on the page? Isn’t that an amazing trick?

  HOW A POEM APPEARS ON THE PAGE

  Another way that the form could follow the content of poetry would be how the poem looks on the page. For instance, a poem about neat and orderly things (like instructions, or obsessive-compulsive disorder) or a poem where everything is in its right place might be written in a way that looks crisp, systematic. But notice how this can also appear oppressive, and might be a great form for a poem about staying in the closet about something, or feeling stifled in a relationship, or maybe imagining someone you love inside of a coffin.

  CAN BE A DIRECT COMMENT ON ITS MEANING

  And sometimes a poem

  might lookcompletelyerratic

  on the page

  as if you were let inthroughthe secret back gate

  of the mind of a mad

  genius

  where wildflowersbloomunruly

  and any sort of magic

  can happen without

  the prison barsof our concepts

  ofs p a c eandtime.

  BUT WHAT IF I STILL DON’T GET IT?

  It’s true. Sometimes poems can be difficult to understand on the first read, in a way that an essay or novel is not. That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy poems that we don’t comprehend on the first go-around. Sometimes we read or hear poems that we actually feel affecting us in our bodies before we are totally cognizant of what they are saying. That could be th
e sonic quality of the poem, or the visceral nature of the words chosen, or that could be an image that sears into our brain well before we can completely contextualize it. Sometimes a goose bump doesn’t know where it came from. Amazing!

  The poet Carrie Rudzinski has this line in one of her poems: “Let’s get married and name all of our children ribcage.” Can you explain what this line means? Maybe not. But there’s a good chance you love it regardless. Do your hairs stand on end? Is there a slight buzzing surrounding the perimeter of your existence? Maybe. A poem is not necessarily meant to be experienced as a straightforward story. It’s more like a complex soup: each flavor, each spice, each ingredient achieving a different thing. A poem is something to be engaged with! Taste the poem on your tongue.

  But of course you want to understand what you’re reading. So know this: Reading a poem more than once can be a great help. We may not read a novel more than once, but we do listen to songs over and over and over. Often we enjoy a song the most not the first time we hear it, but after we’ve replayed it many times, after we’ve listened to it inside and out. Poetry is the same way! The more we know a poem, the more intimate we can become with it, the more questions we can ask of it, the more it can tell us about ourselves. Reading a poem typically takes less time than listening to a song, so try reading a poem a few times. Put it down for a while. Come back to it. How has it changed? How have you changed?