I first began writing and studying poetry as an undergraduate at Trinity University, where I was lucky enough to enroll in a course taught by Jenny Browne. Sometime during that semester, I remember Jenny telling us, “Every poem is a political poem.” It was the first time I’d ever considered the idea that there might be some kind of core essence that all poems contain, although I would later come to learn that quite a few poets have expressed similar views. Danez Smith, for example, noted that “every poem is political” in an interview with the Guardian. The Los Angeles Times shared a similar quote from Philip Levine: “I think the writing of a poem is a political act.” We live in a time—and perhaps humans have always lived in times—in which even the most seemingly private or neutral things are capable of weaving their way into legislation and other systems of control. This includes not only the land and its resources but also the land’s nonhuman inhabitants, whether wild or domesticated; our bodies and their medical care; our sex lives and family units; and our movements from place to place. So, yes, maybe it should seem obvious that any topic we might write about is always and already political in some way. The act of writing itself—the very concept of literacy—has a deeply politicized and regulated history.
But there are other ideas about the core essence within poetry, too. In Plato’s Symposium, Agathon argues, “… [Love] is also the source of poesy in others, which Love could not be if it were not a poet. And at the touch of Love every one becomes a poet …” Here, the suggestion is that love might serve as one of poetry’s universal, underlying components. It’s a claim that Jericho Brown somewhat echoed—and perhaps even alluded to—in an interview with The Kenyon Review when he joined the two concepts and said: “Every poem is a love poem. Every poem is a political poem. So say the masters. Every love poem is political. Every political poem must fall in love.” Whereas other poets, philosophers, and critics have pointed to other essential elements. Wallace Stevens, for instance, suggested that poetry “has to think about war.” And I have made my own argument, drawing upon the works of Federico García Lorca and Raúl Zurita, that every poem is, at its core, about death—or at the very least about mortality. These are the characteristics that make us human. We are civilized, yet we often behave in uncivilized ways. We experience various forms of love, but alongside those, the loss of love. We will die and we know that we will die.
Whatever the angle might be, one aspect of this discourse remains consistent: Poets seem to spend a lot of time discussing whether and how various things might be central to poetry. Here though, I want to turn the same question on its head. What if instead we were to consider whether and how poetry is central to various other things?
I was reading Leonardo da Vinci’s journal entries about art when this idea first occurred to me. I’ve long held a deep interest in and respect for his works, which feature prominently in several of my poems. So when I stumbled upon his musings about poetry, I was very surprised and disappointed to learn that he not only held it in very low regard—the lowest, he argues, among many art forms, including painting, sculpture, and music—but also to see that his argument was clearly flawed. I could write a whole dissertation rebutting the points made by da Vinci in his manifesto against poetry 1, but I’m not ultimately interested in presenting any kind of hierarchical claim about poetry’s superiority. So, for the moment, I’ll limit myself to highlighting the one particular aspect of da Vinci’s argument that led me to consider whether it might be useful to reverse the idea that certain things are central to poetry. It’s summarized best in this passage:
“… the poet is, as far as the representation of bodily things is concerned, greatly inferior to the painter, and as far as invisible things are concerned he is far behind the musician. But if the poet borrows the aid of the other sciences, he can appear at the fair like the other merchants, bearers of diverse goods made by many artificers; and the poet does this when he borrows the science of others, such as that of the orator, the philosopher, the astrologer, the cosmographer and the like … and if you wish to know the true function of the poet, you will find that he is no other than an assembler of goods stolen …”
Here da Vinci suggests that, among other reasons, poetry lacks its own inherent virtue because it’s so heavily infused with material that connects to other disciplines. To him, that means it’s cheating. Poetry isn’t really its own art form at all; it’s a franken-brew of many things. My immediate reaction upon reading this was, yes, of course—and isn’t that part of what makes it great? Isn’t that a feature that sets poetry apart—not in a negative way, but in a positive sense?
Now, to many readers, the idea that any diverse array of material could become the material of a poem probably won’t seem all that revolutionary. Of course a person can engage with any subject matter they like. But as I sat with that notion and turned it over in my mind, something suddenly clicked, and I realized that—rather than only questioning whether all poems inherently contain politics or love or death—we could also be asking whether everything that is not already poetry contains poetry. Whether everything is in some sense poetic. What if that were true?
To be clear, I’m not naive enough to imagine myself as the first person who’s ever offered this perspective, nor do I have any desire for it to replace the other avenues of discourse I discussed previously. Those are all vital, too. But this is an angle that seems worthy of being part of our conversation. In this moment especially, perhaps it would be useful for us to allow room for even more expansive and optimistic possibilities. Will it save the world to think that everything is poetic? Certainly not. And yet, on a personal level, maybe it could make a difference when the dark moments grow overwhelming, when we’re tired, and when there’s still much work to be done. Why not at least consider the view that there might in fact be unlimited elemental features within poetry, because perhaps every concept and thing on Earth already contains poetry, is latently teeming with poetry? What if poetry is really the core essence? Poetry itself. Today, that’s what I choose to believe.
1For example, da Vinci argues that, because pilgrimages are often undertaken at great peril in order to view sacred visual artworks, those paintings and sculptures must be more important and spiritually moving to worshippers than written words alone, a point which clearly neglects the fact that scriptural texts—written words—generally serve as the backbone of all organized religions. (Thoughts on Art and Life by Leonardo da Vinci, translated by Maurice Baring)