I Wonder

Catherine Bui


“Poetry makes nothing happen” – W. H. Auden

At age ten I knew that I was born to be a poet. Having written a riveting piece, ‘I Wonder…’, I accepted the assumption that the poem would either change the world around me or the world that existed within. I proudly presented it to my piano teacher and basked in her assurances that I would one day become Prime Minister. She later took it home to show her husband, and I knew he would be the first of many. My poetry was shaping minds! But that’s where it stopped. I have only recently dug up the poem…it still exists. Humbly so; in the recesses of a hard-drive, in a long-forgotten laptop, daring to disturb the universe but failing to ripple past pixels on a screen. No-one outside my parents, my piano teacher and her husband will likely ever read it. Despite my idealistic expectations, the poem was forgotten. It changed the opinions of no-one. By any reasonable standard, my verses possessed no enduring value. In short, my poem made nothing happen.

But what does it mean to make nothing happen? Is it the absence of something? Or is it merely the uninterrupted presence of the constant? When a moment of change has occurred but the result seems unaffected has nothing happened? When a dam is filled with rain, but the water quickly settles on the surface, once more a still body, it appears that nothing has happened. When the first lines of written text have stilled on the page, it too seems that nothing has happened.

The first form of writing is acknowledged as the cuneiform script created in Mesopotamia, 3200BCE and the oldest text dating between 2400-2300BCE. This is, however, not to say that storytelling started here. Far from it. Rather it is likely that oral narratives of some sort or another existed extensively prior to this epoch. And yet this is also not to say that the older the text, the more notable it is. How often have you picked up an edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh? Or studied it? Or seen it on the bookshelves of libraries? No. It is decidedly not time that allows a poem to make something happen. One could even argue that the longer a poem simply exists without consumption, the longer it has allowed nothing to happen.

Whether you are an avid consumer of poetry or not, it is difficult to escape the reality that T. S. Eliot remains one of the most celebrated poets. Despite this, even notable poems (like the work of Eliot) that dissect enduring issues persisting in contemporary society have become increasingly inaccessible. In a 2012 national governmental survey conducted in the US, it was found that only 6.7% of American adults had read poetry at least once in the past year. As stated in Christopher Ingraham’s article, “Poetry is going extinct, government data show”, we are verging ever closer to the “death of poetry”. And in the eyes of many, the consumption of Eliot’s canonical literature simply serves as an intellectual façade (a mark of pretension if you will), ornamenting bookshelves and collecting dust.

“For I have known them all already, known them all…
And I have known the eyes already, known them all…
And I have known the arms already, known them all,”

In his poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ Eliot’s anaphoric stream of consciousness imitates the persona’s intimate, introspective meanderings. An echo chamber of contemplation is created in the first-person repetition of phrases, mimicking the rambling rhythm of the persona’s thoughts. Eliot’s distinct use of synecdoche in the devolution from "all," to "eyes," to mere "arms," mutilates the notion of personal identity and disfigures the union between the persona and his social setting. In an industrialising society, Eliot articulates a distinctive sense of alienation as he seeks not to revolutionise but express his own concerns about modern disillusionment. And yet what has happened? Perhaps nothing.

This nothing. This lack of action. This mere ponderance. Is it possible to call his poetry valueless simply because it has not changed the world? Indeed, how dare I disturb the universe when I have nothing but words?

When the lines of letters that once ran lay still and the ink that once bled runs dry and the paper that once creased lays flat, does a poet’s ideas lose meaning? Do they lose function? Does a composer’s pen no longer hold the same weight? When their words flow like water. When they are nothing but steam. Has nothing happened? W. H. Auden’s poetic elegy to W. B. Yeats ostensibly supports this notion in the line, “poetry makes nothing happen”.

However, let us observe Auden’s line in full, “poetry makes nothing happen: it survives”. Indeed, to conduct this very discussion of relevancy, Eliot’s poetry must have withstood the test of time. Not all poetry makes something tangible happen. And even within the poems that do, their effect can be obscured with time. But it is undeniable that something can happen, something has happened.

The Bible. Although not entirely composed of poems, David’s Psalms are a piece of poetry that have undoubtedly changed the world. Allen Ginsberg’s controversial ‘Howl’ revolutionised a society enraptured by conformity. An anguished protest which had a cataclysmic impact on a conservative literary sphere and a traditionalist society. Yeats’ ‘Easter 1916’ which helped fan the flame of nationalism and eventually lead to Ireland’s independence. Eliot’s (early) poetry which facilitated a period of intense questioning about the nature of the human condition and about modernism. His words led individuals to challenge ideas about Enlightenment, about Victorianism, religion, humanism, and the capacity for individuals to effect change in their world. Although its’ value is not solely defined within the parameters of inciting action, poetry can change the world around us. Poetry facilitates understanding. Poetry disseminates knowledge. And poetry frees thought. It represents the real world in a way that evokes emotion, in a way that elicits action. It is the single moment when the rain touches the water’s surface and sends a momentary ripple. It is in that instant poetry makes something happen. And it is in the forging of our own ‘instants’ that we are able to be a droplet in a cascading waterfall.

Again, at age ten, as I sat idly on a park bench waiting for my piano lesson I breezed over a little poem; Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’. I was interested, and for those few minutes completely absorbed. Swallowed whole by the whirlpool of ideas Kipling presented. But to ten-year-old me, the poem’s tangible impact seemed to last little past the sound of the first note as my index finger struck the white key. Now consumed in an entirely different world of notes and flow, my thoughts were occupied with the new sheet in front of me. This is not to say I didn’t appreciate the poem. Sure, I did. Each line flowed seamlessly, as words do, like water down a small creek. However, the poem’s transient impact could be equated to a single drop consumed by a puddle of intrigues. And back then, I would probably have likened it to making nothing happen. But this is not true. If I hadn’t stumbled across Kipling on an old park bench it is very likely that my poetry too would never have existed; irrespective of the waves it now makes, or rather, does not make.

Yes. It was perhaps in inspiring me to craft my own poetry that ‘If’ made something occur. In reading, I found solace and thought-provoking ideas, and in writing I found freedom and creative expression. Wielding words and moulding meaning, poetry was the cathartic means to (at the very least) reflect on within. As I wondered, the letters on the page wandered too – lost, reaching, searching for their own meaning – and something happened.

As I mature, poetry and literature continue to shape my identity. It does not appear in the absolute way of inciting change. Nor is it the way of determining my values. But rather, it is in the simplest sense. As I learnt to read. Then read to learn. I now read to understand and learn to evoke. In considering the enduring poetry of the likes of T. S. Eliot and his predecessors and his contemporaries and his successors, I too endeavour to explore issues through a lens which is both subjective and objective. Forged in a realm of scathing realism and cracked to reveal slivers of idealism. My exposure to quality poetry has enriched my appreciation of poetry’s expressly deliberate techniques hidden within powerful fictive phrases. Poetry’s value is not necessarily in making anything profound happen but rather in enabling freedom from thoughts that inhibit change. If that is what it takes, then “If” is what I will continue striving to make.

If we are to inspect the phrase, “poetry makes nothing happen”, from a different angle one last time, the word “nothing” could well be taken as the intended object of the sentence. In fact, in this way, nothing appears not as the enemy, but instead, sometimes, as the grateful product. Don Share succinctly expresses Auden’s idea of nothing as, “intransitive and tautological” where “nothing is neither a thing, nor no thing, but a continuous event.” It is thus in both consuming and creating that we are able to make nothing occur.

Do I dare disturb the universe? Indeed, I wonder…