On Naming

Part II.

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your comments about last week’s post and my poem, “Accounting.” I’ve written a second post today about poetry’s power to name because I think naming is one of the poetry’s greatest gifts to the human experience and to finding fulfillment. The following story is from my Poetry Tables book.

Several years ago, I was invited to facilitate a Poetry Table for a group of managers in a leadership program for a construction company. The company built large structures like embassies and highway interchanges. The conference was at a resort in Texas. Charlie picked “Courage” by Anne Sexton.

Courage

It is in the small things we see it.

The child’s first step,

as awesome as an earthquake.

The first time you rode a bike,

wallowing up the sidewalk.

The first spanking when your heart

went on a journey all alone.

When they called you crybaby

or poor or fatty or crazy

and made you into an alien,

you drank their acid

and concealed it.

Later,

If you faced the death of bombs and bullets

you did not do it with a banner,

you did it with only a hat to

cover your heart.

You did not fondle the weakness inside you

though it was there.

Your courage was a small coal

that you kept swallowing.

If your buddy saved you

and died himself in so doing,

then his courage was not courage,

it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,

if you have endured a great despair,

then you did it alone

getting a transfusion from the fire,

picking the scabs off your heart,

then wringing it out like a sock.

Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,

you gave it a back rub

and then you covered it with a blanket

and after it had slept a while

it woke to the wings of the roses

and was transformed.

Later,

when you face old age and its natural conclusion

your courage will still be shown in the little ways,

each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen,

those you love will live in a fever of love,

and you’ll bargain with the calendar

and at the last moment

when death opens the back door

you’ll put on your carpet slippers

and stride out.

Anne Sexton

After small-group conversations, when we reconvened as a large group, I asked if anyone wanted to read their poem, share why it mattered, why they picked it, and how it related to their life and work. Charlie volunteered to read “Courage” and then told the group he had lost a daughter in a car accident. The third stanza was about the great despair; the strong imagery and the transformation of grief had touched him and hooked him. He could relate to that experience of grief and transformation. Charlie repeated multiple times how much he really loved the poem and how healing it was for him. It allowed him to express his most potent, pent-up emotions and release them.

As I have previously stated, I think a huge part of poetry’s value is recognizing and naming pain and loss and, possibly, providing healing. For the construction manager who lost his daughter in a car accident, the poem he picked, “Courage,” named his loss and provided healing. I am sure he had a funeral after his daughter died. Her funeral may have been healing. However, it was not enough, since moving through grief can be a lifelong process. Something else was necessary. Charlie found additional healing sometime later through the distilled language and compact form of a poem.

Until next week!

David