Message in a Bottle
Dear Readers,
A poet wants to say something about the present that extends into the future. A poem wants to last beyond the immediate moment. A poem tries to overcome distance, in all its aspects: physical distance and time. A metaphor sometimes used for poems is that each is a message in bottle. The poet rolls up the poem, puts it in a bottle, corks it, and tosses it into the sea. When and where it washes up, and who finds and reads it, is a mystery.
The message in a bottle is a beautiful image. The finder finds the gift from afar, from another time and place, from a stranger they will never meet. It’s also possible the bottle never will be found. But when it is found, that discovery can be a miracle.
On May 10 and on May 17, I posted about Charlie, a construction manager, who discovered Anne Sexton’s poem “Courage.”
Finding the poem felt miraculous to him. Anne Sexton was dead when he read “Courage.” Nevertheless, her poem outlived her. It spoke directly to a man who didn’t know her, might not have even liked her if they met, and probably wouldn’t have crossed paths with her even if they were alive at the same time. How would they have met? What did they have in common anyway? Charlie was a construction manager in Texas. She was a poet in Massachusetts. And yet, she wrote a poem that touched him. She expressed something in “Courage” about grief and healing that he hadn’t heard expressed in any other way. She spoke for his grief and his healing. Her words moved him and moved him forward, which is what healing is—forward movement. Meaningful poetry can do this, as can any profound literature and art. It can speak to different peoples and generations, and cross boundaries of time, nationality, and religion.
Talk to you next week!
David
