Poieses Habitus VI: A Philosophy of Aesthetics in Poetry
These installments explore poetry not merely as a literary form, but as a way of seeing, shaping, and inhabiting the world. Through close readings of poets such as Mary Oliver (with emphasis on her book “A Poetry Handbook”), Denise Levertov, Marianne Moore, and Robert Frost, among other 20th-Century Poets, the reader can expect reflections on sound, line, imagery, form, and freedom alongside personal meditations on writing habits, aesthetics, faith, and artistic formation. Blending literary criticism with spiritual and philosophical reflection, these short essays consider how poetry cultivates attentiveness to beauty, truth, and human experience while tracing the author’s own evolving understanding of poetic design and creative practice.
Statement of Aesthetics
When I first began writing poetry, I did not merely do it to put something beautiful out into the world. I began writing poetry in an attempt to get something inexpressible within me out. Most of my early poetry was so personal to me (and so horrendous) that I had no desire to share it with the world. But that was only a seed—a tender little thing shoved into the dirt in hopes it might one day become something more. Over time, I have come to see poetry as a pursuit of what is good, beautiful, and true; it is a way of bearing witness by design to a world that is altogether radiant and broken, pointing us toward something deeper and eternal.
I have always despised free verse under the guise of “it is not poetry because it is choppy and does not sound nice.” Beneath those excuses hid a lack of understanding, which, though I always figured was present, I made no effort to remedy. Denise Levertov was one exception whose poetry I have always appreciated without knowing why. Indeed, she was the first poet I turned to when the time came to understand free verse. Swan in Falling Snow is perhaps the most influential in my aesthetic development. Her lines, “Upon the darkish, thin, half-broken ice / there seemed to lie a barrel-sized, heart-shaped snowball...,” when read aloud, were not choppy or broken as I found so much of free verse to be (Levertov 220). Without having the terminology at the time, I realize now it is her use of assonance and other sound devices that harken a deeper meaning between the lines of this poem.
I limited myself to an appreciation of form without understanding the unwritten form available to free verse. Oliver points out that free verse is fluid and organic (67). She writes that, “[free verse poetry] is free from formal metrical design; it certainly isn’t free from some kind of design.” (Oliver 67) It was this quote that caused me to start looking for a design that may hide itself between the lines of prose or free verse. Other poetic devices, such as refrain, repetition, alliteration, imagery, and assonance, are emphasized all the more in the absence of form (Oliver 68). Harryette Mullen’s Black Nikes was the prose poem I turned to so I might make sense of this hidden design. Mullen details the journey of black people to the stars using extended metaphor. She writes, “This comet could scour the planet. Make it sparkle like a fresh toilet swirling with blue... we’re leaving all this dirt.” (Mullen 518) What this poem lacks in form, it makes up for by using imagery, assonance, and downright exceptional diction. It was then that I came to accept that there can be just as much goodness, beauty, and truth in freedom as there is in any received form.
When I sit down to begin writing, I no longer limit myself to writing in a received form. While form remains a personal preference, instead of asking what form my poem should take, I now ask myself how it will be designed. Furthermore, understanding the design of free verse poems has only helped me improve my received form poetry. This knowledge has enabled me to take the design of free verse (imagery, repetition, personification, etc.) and use those techniques within the boundaries of form. Robert Frost’s Tree at My Window has greatly impacted my writing by showing me how form and free design can come together to create something beautiful. He begins the poem with, “Tree at my window, window tree, / My sash is lowered when night comes on; / but let there never be curtain drawn / Between you and me.” (Frost 20) Not only does this poem uphold a rhyme scheme and form, but it also uses thoughtful, well-implemented poetic tools like personification, repetition, and metaphor—it uses design. It uses design within a design, making the poem feel exceptionally thoughtful. It is this use of design that has most greatly influenced my own poetic endeavors.
Poetry is not just clever wordplay; it is designed with intention and perspective; it exists beyond ordinary language devices (Oliver 122). It seeks to unify beauty, goodness, and truth into something altogether necessary. It points us to something greater than any normal body of text could; whether that is the truth of what this broken earth is really like, whether that is the beauty of the summer day, or whether that is the goodness of what it means to cherish life. Whatever its end, poetry points to a creator who created us with thoughtful design and allows us to do the same. Even Oliver states that, “Poetry is a life-cherishing force.” (122) As a Christian, I believe that Christ, the embodiment of love, is the source of all beauty, goodness, and truth. His love is like a poem in measures and times. He sings forth rich abundance, and His rhythm rhymes. He is never lacking, perfectly tacking grace to sinners' souls. What void it fills, what ease to still and pay the sinners’ tolls! Christ is the source of life, therefore, however the words may be woven or distorted, poetry is a Christ-cherishing force. And writing poetry is to take part in the very image of God. In the end, poetry is my practice of attending to a design that bears witness to the good, the beautiful, and the true, where I may participate in the artistry that has been stitched into me by God, my designer.
Bibliography
Frost, Robert. "Tree at My Window." The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove, 1st ed., Penguin Books, 2013, p. 20.
Levertov, Denise. "Swan in Falling Snow." The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove, 1st ed., Penguin Books, 2013, p. 220.
Mullen, Harryette. "Black Nikes." The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove, 1st ed., Penguin Books, 2013, p. 518.
Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. 1st ed., Mariner, 1994.