The bookclub of language

The poet who went on and on about her soul, the one who’s so revered now, referring to her soul as ‘it’ over and over, having it perform so many ordinary duties in the course of the poem that the soul sounds like the speech of an ordinary person having ordinary experiences, much as the heart, the brain, the lungs, feet, eyes, ears have ordinary experiences, so ordinary that we no longer recognize the extraordinary services these organs provide. I suppose, reading the poem a second and then a third time, that this was the point the poet hoped to make—that the soul is outstanding in its relation to other sensory experiences as well as being one of them, tangible in both an experiential and non-experiential sense.

Language is a club we all belong to, a country club as it were, in which we are privileged members. We arrive at the club, needing of course a password to gain entrance. Once inside, there’s a hush that commands the immediate respect of those admitted. Men and women are seated at tables and on sofas and chairs, talking discretely. No smoking is allowed. Cliche’s are politely passed around, as are serving dishes filled with nuts, fruits, candies. There’s a library on the south wall, filled with leather bound editions written by great thinkers of the past.

After all these years to find something well written is still so surprising. Even the members of this club mostly read the morning papers, having given up on literature, believing now that the educational system, such as it is, is of value primarily to provide the socialization tools necessary to survive, and not, necessarily to produce people who can think clearly. The idea that someone may be equipped to pick up a book and read it by applying a clear mind to the reading is no longer paramount—what is now paramount is to instill the desire, especially among younger members, to even pick up a book in the first place.

Poets and their poetry are completely misunderstood. The soul is a murky concept; words only wet it down until it finally collapses into the heap of roots at the very bottom strata of civilization, where life may once begin again in the perfect harmony of chaos.