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The Day of Poetry is Coming (1996) |
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Wednesday, 28 August 1996 08:08 |
Some people do not have, or claim not to have, any feelings for poetry. I find this hard to accept, believe, or understand; for is not poetry the encapsulation of everything we are and every thing we hope to be? Is not poetry life itself?
Thus if people can appreciate food, music, beauty, clothes, etcetera; if they can feel the anguishes of emotional and physical pain or the ecstacies of happiness and contentment, how can they claim to be disjointed from poetry in any way?
Yes, poetry goes beyond the sound that droplets from a leaking tap make when they hit the ground. It goes beyond the commas and full stops in the works of Wordsworth, Tennyson, Knight, and their compatriots. Poetry reaches deeper than that. It is the beat in the hardest rock ‘n’ roll, the funk in the most rebellious raggae, and the blues in the softest soul. It is the sweet little things lovers say to one another and the sad things they go on to do to each other. It is the joy in a smile, the pain in a broken heart, the awesome feeling of a great idea and the result of all inspiration. It covers everything from the bitter hatred and selfish pride that causes wars to the sweetness of the promise that brings about lovemaking.
I look forward therefore, to the day when the world celebrates its written poetry as it does its music, fashion, its films, its sport and its technology. I look forward to the day when those commas and full stops in the works of our poets no longer gather dust piled up on library shelves, but become the very punctuation of our daily lives. I look forward to that day when we shall dance in the streets and sing in the clouds- as we celebrate world poetry in all its beautiful forms.
To that day.
© Fungai James Tichawangana
University of Zimbabwe
Wednesday 28 August 1996
0808hrs |
Pieces of Prose