- Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
Agard (left): I do it because I can't not do it. At right, Chin describes poetry as a 'demanding lover'.
Tanya Batson-Savage, Staff Reporter
POETRY HAS captured human imagination for possibly more centuries than can be counted. Some of humanity's greatest minds have attempted to find ways to define poetry or explain why mankind writes poetry.
The philosopher Plato said that 'poetry comes closer to vital truth than history'. This may explain the growing popularity of poetry at this time when self-expression and issues of identity confront the world in the face of globalisation.
Of course, Plato also says that 'at the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet'. Whether our concept of poetry is 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star', the works of Louise Bennett-Coverley or William Shakespeare (her slightly older brother on her stepmotherland's side), most of us have ideas of poetry. This is even as many of us might not be able to explain exactly what poetry is.
DEFINITION
The question of defining poetry is one that often plagues poets themselves, many of whom write poems about poems, in conversation with other poems. Of course, who better should talk about the art form, than those who check the box marked 'Poetry' for their profession? As such, The Sunday Gleaner decided to pose Staceyann Chin and Roger Bonair Agard the question, while they were visiting the island recently for the finals of the inaugural 'Rush De Mic' competition, put on by Root Cause at the Weekenz Bistro and Bar, Constant Spring Road, St. Andrew.
Bonair Agard gives an interesting definition of poetry, which is rather akin to Plato's. He describes it as a "linguistic experiment that finds the core of things". Agard was born in Trinidad and now lives in New York City. Like Plato's, his definition is not likely to be found in any dictionary, whether pocket or concise, Webster, Collins or Oxford. Agard goes on to explain that the reason he writes poetry is very simple: "I do it because I can't not do it.
"Poetry is, in its basest essence, a way, and the most important way, for me to express all the things I believe and all the issues I have with the world around me," says Agard.
THING OF BEAUTY
Staceyann Chin, a Jamaican by birth and upbringing, is also living in New York City. Although neither of them had left their homelands to become poets, they found their voices away from the Caribbean.
Chin agrees with his definition of the meaning of poetry, though she sees it as more. "Before it (poetry) gets to be political, before it gets to be sexual, before it gets to be personal, before it gets to be a tool for change, a tool of activism, or any of those things, poetry is a thing of beauty for me." Even so, she describes it as a "demanding lover".
She goes on to explain that poetry defines her essence. "I think to date I have not done anything more beautiful than that. Nothing pulls at what makes the centre of me like poetry," she said.
Chin is a graduate of the University of the West Indies and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Literatures in English. Her time at the university, where she read and analysed poetry, played into her love for the art form she explained, naming Lorna Goodison and Edward Baugh as some of the poets who inspired her affair with poetry. However, while her awe of these Caribbean greats inspired her to say, "My God, to write like this", finding her own voice inspired her to change it to "My God, to write like me".
Agard believes that language is fluid and many of the definitions used to separate different kinds of writing are merely artificial constructions. To make his point, he states his belief that the way Toni Morrison expresses herself makes her novels poetry. "Nobody can tell me that anything that Toni Morrison writes isn't just one long freakin' poem, in terms of the 'poetickness' of the language," he said.
In part because of this, Agard believes that poetry tends to depend on personal definitions. "I tend to believe that if the writer says it's a poem, then it's a poem, but I have the right to say it's a sh... a.. poem," he said.
WHAT QUALIFIES AS POETRY
Chin states that while she quite agrees with Bonair Agard about the nature of poetry, the growing popularity and commercialisation of poetry brings with it questions about what qualifies as poetry. Interestingly, Chin has been a part of this commercial process, as she has appeared on the Russell Simmons HBO series Def Jam Poetry and its spin-off, Def Jam Poetry On Broadway. Additionally, both poets are veterans of Slam poetry competitions, which have grown increasingly popular in the United States, inspiring several films.
Chin argues that the movement "of what is tagged as poetry" into the mainstream brings with it the discussion, because "so many 'ordinary' people" are drawn to not only listen to, but also write their own poetry. She argues that as poetry begins to take up residence in the minds of ordinary people, narrow definitions of poetry will be questioned. She argued that over the past few hundred years, the definition of poetry has served to exclude Joe and Jane Average, keeping poetry élitist.
Although she realises that with its commercialisation many poor poets will and do get 'props' from the resulting hype, she sees the broadening of the idea of who can be a poet as a balancing effect. Agreeing with the idea that poetry once belonged to a "protected club", Bonair Agard also appreciates commercialisation taking poetry to the masses.
"I think it is okay that there are bad poets out there," he said. He argues that there will always be those who are committed to the art form and that is what gives it its lasting value. He believes that the true poets, the ones who fight for and live and learn about poetry, will be committed well beyond the hype. "Twenty years from now, no Def Jam, no Slam stage, no one who knows who Roger Bonair Agard is, I'm going to still write poetry," he explained.
He adds that the growing popularity of mass-appeal poetry means that it continues to find its way as a tool of expression. For him, that is of paramount importance.
Agard goes on to explain that he believes a poet is not someone who makes their 'living' from poetry but one who makes a 'life of it', pointing out that what your are should not be defined by how you make your money. He argues that what is important is working at it, for the sheer love of it.
