Poetic Justice

This week, I rediscovered my adoration for John Keats.

After posting the poem “Oh Blush Not So!” on here, I began to remember how ingenious he was. So, I hie-d me up to Borders with the companionship of darling Nichole, and I found the Penguin Classics complete poetry of John Keats. I may have hyperventilated and grasped the window for support just a little. Maybe a little more than a little, but it was far shy of a lot.

The poetry section at Borders is sporadically restocked. Rarely do you find exactly what you are looking for. Since I happened across the complete works of John Keats, I took it as a sign and purchased it immediately. (Don’t judge; I had a coupon to reduce it from $16 to $11.75. How could I refuse?)

Here’s where the story takes an unexpected turn that caused Nichole to shoot me wary and worried glances all day.

Rather than leaving the book in the safety of the car while we finished our errands, I brought it with me. I couldn’t keep my hands off of it. I kept it in my arms all day. I opened it at random and read some of my old favorites as well as some I had never read before. I toyed with Keats for hours, letting him elate and depress me, confide in and rebuff me, fascinate and bore me. I’ve creased Keats’ spine already, and those of you who have seen my library know I take special care to preserve the original condition of my books.

This frenzied obsession with the sexy, black-covered volume made me reminisce as t how my deep passion for poetry developed.

I was never a literary child. While I enjoyed books, I didn’t feel driven to read them. That’s what the movie was for, right? (Oh, irony.) In fact, I hated reading. When we first moved to the U.S., I tested several grades above level, so I got lazy. I’ve always been easily seduced by the easy life. I only began to read voraciously in 7th grade, and I it wasn’t until 9th grade that I began an acquaintance with poetry.

I mean, I used to see poetry everyday in Mr. Williams’ class, say hi, listen to it for a minute or two, then forget about it. Occasionally, my eyes drifted across the room to it, waiting in the corner, but I looked away before anyone could notice. We weren’t close. We didn’t move in the same circles. Sure, I was vaguely interested (as I believe it was in me), but we never forged a major connection. Until Coleridge.

Ah, Samuel! I discovered Coleridge in 10th grade. “Kubla Khan” changed my life. It pulled me out of class and sent me through a whirling spiral of space/time, and I found that, once there, I never wanted to come home. No thanks, Dorothy; keep your ruby red slippers. Xanadu kicks Oz’s ass anyway.

Why my abrupt fixation with poetry?

I have always fought an internal battle between logic and emotion. My emotions are hasty and so eager; they jump to react to everything around me, reigning craziness down of the innocents nearby. My logic, however, is learned, carefully crafted, and precise. It lets my emotion leap . . . and then smacks it with a board on the head. Within this discord lies my answer: Poetry allows my extremes to work in cooperation rather than competition.

My emotions are fed by the passion and the beauty of the poet’s apparition while my logic is undulated with form, allusions, pieces of a puzzle that must be assembled quickly before the magic is gone. Poetry can be intellectual, zealous, structured, wild, beautiful, dour, uplifting, disheartening, and everything buried in between.

Why settle for something simple when I can feast on something so sustaining?

Here endeth the rant.