Chapter+Six+-+Eating+Poetry,+Nibbling+Memoirs

Eating Poetry
//Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees. Her eyes are sad and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone. The light is dim. The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll, their blond legs burn like brush. The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand. When I get on my knees and lick her hand, she screams.

I am a new man. I snarl at her and bark. I romp with joy in the bookish dark. ~Mark Strand, from __Reasons for Moving__//

I am an eater of poetry
The first time I read Mark Strand's poem, "Eating Poetry," I immediately connected with this crazy narrator, this "eater" of poetry. This poem, though surreal and haunting, resonated with my own feelings toward the genre of poetry. Like the narrator, I felt "there is no happiness like mine" when I sat with a collection of verse. Poems, unlike short stories or novels, were pleasurable to read because of their lyric descriptions, concise forms, and abstract references. When I first encountered Strand's poem, I was an undergraduate student, majoring in English literature and creative writing. As a student who regularly studied lengthy texts, I grew tired of novels, plays, and even short stories. Texts written in these genres required me to concentrate on complicated plot structures, flat and round characters, and pages of dialogue. I was continually assigned such texts to analyze and research, and I was beginning to view such texts as specimens. Rather than appreciating the assigned literature as works of art and beauty, I regarded them simply as subjects to dissect.

Then along came poetry. Poetry became my pleasure reading, especially contemporary poetry. I fell in love with free verse, with the freedom to read of people, places, and experiences without the restrictions of form (such as meter and rhyme schemes). I also fell in love with the enjoyment contemporary poets seemed to take with their use of language. Using simple, common place words, poets created realistic and fanciful images that transported me to their worlds. For example, in "Eating Poetry," Strand describes a surreal visit to the library by animating the statues which stand outside the building. He writes, "The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up." These statues further come to life by rolling their eyeballs and burning "like brush." Such images, though frightening and strange, appealed to my identity as a reader. Like the narrator, I enjoyed reading and going to libraries; in fact, I was so enthralled with these activities that I became consumed with them. Oftentimes, I became so invested in books I was reading, I did not want to leave the imagined world these texts created in my mind. Like the narrator of this poem, I was trasformed into a new person. Just as he is transformed into a dog along with the library's statues, I felt transported into an imaginary world.

As an avid reader and "eater" of poetry, I connected with the both the narrator's desire to live in his self-created fantasy and his realization that the "real" world does not understand this desire. When the narrator claims that "the librarian does not believe what she sees...she does not understand," he seemed to be describing my own experiences. Though I never actually tried to eat pages of poetry and scare kind librarians, I did share this experience of feeling misunderstood. When reading or writing poetry, I was a different person. And, sometimes, living inside my poetry was more enjoyable and appealing than living as a "real" person in the "real" world. When I wrote a poem, I felt as if I had become a god. Through language, I held the power to create a world and populate this world with creatures, humans, emotions, and ideas. My text, or creation, seemed to be alive. In Crafting a Life, Donald Murray succintly summarizes this god-like experience in stating, "Writing produes a living text that can change and grow as its writer and its readers change and grow" (122). For me, the worlds within my texts seemed exciting and "real" life, in comparison, seemed dull. Here on earth, I was a simple mortal, flawed, living within the constrictions of a real world.

Over the years, I have accumulated many poems that I would consider my "favorites." Like Strand's "Eating Poetry," all of these favorite poems are contemporary and are written in free verse. Similarly, when I compose my own poetry, I usually write in free verse, using short lines and simple language like the poets I admire - Mark Strand, Jorie Graham, Li-Young Lee, and Billy Collins. Even as I continue to add new poems to my list of favorites, "Eating Poetry" still remains at the top of this list. Not simply appealing in its style, this poem also appeals to my passion for poetry in general. If possible, I think I truly would "eat" it. Its concise form, careful use of language, and lyric images remind me of a simple meal - perhaps wheat bread and butter, a bowl of homemade chicken soup. Poetry is satisfying, but not overly filling. It is just enough to sustain my mind's daily needs.