March 21, World Poetry Day, UNESCO recognizes again the point of poetry, celebrating it as one of our most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity. The theme this year is drawn from a line of poetry by Charles Baudelaire – “Always be a poet, even in prose” – a call to observe and appreciate the power of poetry in difficult times.

In words, coloured with images, struck with the right meter, the power of poetry has  no  match. As an  intimate  form  of  expression  that  opens  doors  to  others,  poetry  enriches the dialogue that catalyses  all  human  progress,  and is more necessary than ever in turbulent times.

—  Audrey Azoulay, Director-General.

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My earliest recollection of poetry is my father’s recitation from memory of  ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’ and ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’ by Robert Service or Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”  Whenever I spot daffodils, I am immediately transported to our Dublin Road living room where my father is reciting the opening lines.  Where he learned those poems, I have no idea. My father is not an academic; he did not rub shoulders with the Northern Ireland literati. My da is a maker of things. His is the artisanal handiwork that imbues the Derry townlands he crossed on his motorbike in the early 1960s. As such, he’ll make no bones about telling me that this began solely as a matter of economic necessity – the potato-digging, the turf-cutting, and roof-thatching.

He always whistled or he sang as he worked. With an ear for music, he could always pick out a tune on whatever instrument was within reach – “The Black Velvet Band” on a hefty piano accordian with mother of pearl keys comes to mind. He always sang in harmony to whatever was playing on the – which is probably why I so easily find harmonies when I sing – not melodies – first.  When he was just ten years old, recognizing his little brother’s musical talent, my father made a guitar for him. And, years later, before I was born, he bought me a violin that would one day open doors for me in far away places. My father never bought an instrument for himself, and I don’t recall him ever buying a book or borrowing one from the library – somehow poetry found him. 

I’ve always thought he belongs in a Seamus Heaney poem. He has the “Midas touch” of the thatcher and the grasp of the diviner, his craft and carpentry all shaped by and shaping the place that produced him. Once, I observed, awestruck, as he “witched” water, the pull of it so strong where he stood, that the wishbone-shaped stick in his hands bent and almost tied itself in a knot, “suddenly broadcasting/ Through a green hazel its secret stations.” He grew up – as did my mother – in Heaney country, a place where people believed in “miracles and cures and healing wells,” and where everyone knew the “folk healer,” the individual uniquely gifted with “the cure” or “the charm” for whatever ailed them.

The folk healer meted out charms in plasters and poultices, and potions that swirled in brown bottles. It was to the healer my father turned when the local doctor told my mother there was nothing he could prescribe for her severe bout with jaundice.  Dissatisfied with this response from a man with formal medical training, my father ventured deep into the Derry countryside to the home of the man with “the charm.” Observant and eager to help even though he could not discern which wild herbs held the curing powers, my father accompanied him into the fields. He watched and then waited as the healer wordlessly concocted the charm – beat the juices from the herbs with a stone, then mixed it with two bottles of Guinness stout and poured it into a C&C lemonade bottle. He sent my father on his way with instructions for my mother to drink every last drop. There was no payment – other than faith.

Admittedly, I have always been skeptical of the faith healer but never of the faith  at work in the transaction. In times of crisis, when all else fails, where do we turn? Wherever it is, faith is a part.

After he suffered a stroke in 2005, Seamus Heaney wrote “Miracle,” as part of his Human Chain collection.  As he recalls the men who had to carry him up and down stairs immediately following his stroke, Heaney draws on the New Testament story of the paralyzed man lowered through the roof into Christ’s presence:

Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” – Luke 5:18-20

In a 2009 interview  Heaney said as a non-believer, “Miracle” was not a spiritual poem, but rather one that marked “being changed a bit by something happening. Every now and again you write a poem that changes gear.” I suppose every now and again we all read one that transforms us.

It was only when he suffered a stroke and had to be carried himself, Heaney realized how important those men were, and he invites us to realize the same, to “be mindful” of those who carried him – the human chain – the ones who knew him all along.  Without the community of people around the sick man, there is no miracle.

Miracle

Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
But the ones who have known him all along
And carry him in –

Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
In their backs, the stretcher handles
Slippery with sweat. And no let up

Until he’s strapped on tight, made tiltable
And raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
Be mindful of them as they stand and wait

For the burn of the paid-out ropes to cool,
Their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
To pass, those ones who had known him all along.

Poet, Carol Ann Duffy, once explained in her response to the devastation of the Haiti earthquake as it unfolded on television that “we turn to poetry at intense moments in our lives . . . when we lose people, or are bereaved, we look for a piece of music or poem to read at the funeral, or when we fall in love we turn to poetry, or when children are born. And I think that can happen at moments of public grief too, as well as personal. It is so close to prayer, it is the most intense use of language that there is. It is the perfect art form for public or private grief.”

As for Heaney, when asked about the value of poetry in turbulent times, he replied that it is precisely at such moments that people realize they need more to live than economics: “If poetry and the arts do anything,” he said, “they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness.”

It works like a charm.

 

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