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May 2008

Why Poetry?
By Tiel Aisha Ansari

There’s plenty more to be said about the “how” of poetry, getting down to specifics. I’m going to leave that for now, and write a little bit about the “why” of poetry.

DISCLAIMER: Everything I say here is true for me. It may not be true for anyone else. Truth is One, but wears many faces.

The purpose of poetry is to serve God. Poetry can accomplish this in the same ways as other speech: for example, by praising God, by upholding His rights, by warning against His wrongs. Powerful poetry can spark a truer understanding of God in the hearts of readers and listeners; who hasn't felt this over a poem by Rumi or John Donne or others? Even poetry that isn't apparently "about" anything religious may serve to forge a deeper emotional connection between the reader and the poet, or between the reader and other people, or between the reader and the glory of the natural world.

It's in making these emotional connections that poetry truly excels. This is because of the property I alluded to earlier. Poetry, far more than prose, stimulates the reader or listener to project her- or himself into the experience of the poem; to imaginatively recreate that experience in all its freshness and power.

Notice that asking what a poem is "about" can be as problematic as asking "What does it mean?" In particular, a poem may praise God without explicitly being "about" Him. As a Sufi, I believe that the divine essence is inherent in everything. Therefore, a poem about a snail, your child, or the ocean, may in fact be about God-- to the extent that it recognizes or acknowledges God's essence within the snail, child, or ocean. Read Gerard Manley Hopkins' “Windhover” ( a great example of a poem that should always be read aloud).

I said at the beginning that poetry should be communication. I believe communication is what makes us human; communication is our gift from God. Certainly other animals communicate with their conspecifics, but the breadth, depth and subtlety of human communication is unmatched on this planet. Therefore, if we cut ourselves off from listening and from speaking, we reject this gift. If we deny speech to others, we offend against their humanity and we offend against God.

This then is the Work: to communicate to others, as poets, that which God chooses to reveal to us of His majesty. This task denies reserve, calls upon all our skills, and demands an unselfish heart and a self-critical eye.

Tiel Aisha Ansari is a Sufi, martial artist, and computer programmer living in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in several print and online venues including Islamica Magazine, Mezzo Cammin, The Lyric, and the VoiceCatcher anthology from Portland Women Writers. Her poetry has been featured on Prairie Home Companion and MiPoRadio. She is the author of the poetry collection Knocking from Inside, published by Ecstatic Exchange. You can visit her online at knockingfrominside.blogspot.com.