Poetry as Meditation

For me, the perpetual nerd, poetry is a kind of magic. A good poet has the ability to elevate the mundane and make it sublime. Other poets have the ability to paint a picture of a whole world in only a few words. Some poets read well only in some languages, others are easily translated. Some poets write one verse and that verse shakes you up in a way that you don’t fully understand. Think about this short poem (You Will Hear Thunder) by one of the giants of 20th century poetry, Anna Akhmatova:

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the color of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
when, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

I still remember my 15 year-old self, sitting in the shade in my parents’ vast backyard, being deeply shaken by the words “she wanted storms.” I had no idea what that meant, and I am still not sure if I’m being honest, but something about those words deeply shook up my world. It resonated with something in me that existed beyond words and intellect and concepts. I remember looking at the sky and realizing it’s really really blue. Only a few years later, when I learn about mindfulness, I will understand the experience.

That’s why poetry is magic: in a way that you don’t understand, it shakes up your world and changes it. A poem is a spell. At least if you read it right. Poetry shatters our dualistic thinking, it gives us a jolt that expels us from the trap of language by showing how it falls apart when it has to come exceptionally close to reality. It does exactly what meditation does, if approached right.

To have this effect, poetry can’t be read on the fly, quickly, switching between tabs in your browser. Reading poetry is a sacred act for book nerds. I like to be on the beach or somewhere in nature, because that’s where everything slows done. Or I look to dim the lights in my living room, curl up in my favorite big chair, play Chopin or Satie or something that awakens just enough sentiment to put me in the mood. And then I read and I watch how I react. I read out loud because that’s how I hear the words best. I repeat the verses that feel like they need repeating. You can do it differently, but to make reading poetry a meditative experience, don’t 

Take another poem as an example, one that is quite different than the Akhmatova’s poem I quoted above. The God Abandons Anthony by Constantine Cavafy. The poem is quoted entirely below. Read it out loud, slowly, and pay attention to how it makes you feel, where your mind tries to go, where it gets confused:

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don't mourn your luck that's failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive -- don't mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don't fool yourself, don't say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don't degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
And listen with deep emotion, but not
with whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen -- your final delectation -- to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

There’s so much I could tell you about this poem. Alexandria in Egypt is the city in question, the last refuge of Anthony and Cleopatra. The God that the title refers to is Dionysus, Anthony’s protector. The procession is probably people celebrating the God that is no longer there while Octavian’s army is keeping the city under siege – these are some of the last sounds Anthony will hear before he is killed, death being a shadow that had been following him since the battle of Actium when most of his army abandoned him. Romans rarely believed in forgiveness. The title of the song, The God Abandons Anthony, was taken from Plutarch, who wrote of this historical moment, a significant one. It not only marked the end of Anthony’s life, but also a turning point in world history: the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the empire. So, a great failure on a whole other level.

This is a poem about a great love that is about to be ended by death, of a life gone wrong, a poem that paints a picture of a moment when all your allies run flying (even gods!) and when the project you’ve invested yourself in so fully is now a complete and utter failure. In our insignificant ways, we’ve all been Anthony.

But you don’t need to know any of that, because a sense of loss and doom permeate the poem. That’s what always gets me. His use of imperative, “don’t fool yourself”, “don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now”, etc. The effect this has on me is to, once again, snap me out of my habitual thinking. There is a kind of finality here, a tragic one, but one that is beyond being sentimental or regretful. It’s just there. It just is. Cavafy so easily puts me in this liminal space between language and my raw experience of defeat and impermanence. It’s such a pleasant space to be in, even though the poem is not about a pleasant event. When I get in that state, it no longer matters that the title references Plutarch or what fool would ask the God of wine and sex to protect him in battle, nor the great love shipwreck that Anthony and Cleopatra were, or the political nightmare that the end of the second triumvirate was. What matters is that I’m dislodged from the reality I was in just a few seconds ago. Cavafy elevates me. Time slows down.

Another great poet has written and recorded a paraphrase of this poem – if you like Leonard Cohen, check out his song Alexandra Leaving. He somehow manages to preserve the exact thing that I love about Cavafy’s poem and makes it modern. And about a woman. Here’s his take on Cavafy’s famous poem:

Suddenly the night has grown colder
The god of love preparing to depart
Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder
They slip between the sentries of the heart

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure
They gain the light, they formlessly entwine
And radiant beyond your widest measure
They fall among the voices and the wine

It's not a trick, your senses all deceiving
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

I am seriously tempted to quote the entire poem by Cohen because it is a remarkable piece of literature in itself, but I will refrain myself from it. Suffice it to say that both poets use their tone and their words to convey how futile it is to resist impermanence of power, wealth, love, life itself.

That is why poetry is like meditation. Its weirdness, its scope, it’s peculiarity amplify how absurd our conceptual mind is and point us to look at our direct experience of reading the poem as the point of the poem. By confusing the intellect, poetry allows us to go beyond.

I will leave you with perhaps the most obvious example, a haiku by the great master Basho:

The old pond--
A frog leaps in,
And a splash.