THE POET

A Poem by JENY

This is a short essay wrote for a contest.. The contest asks for the appreciation of the poem given below to be written as an essay .

THE POET

Art is a means of expressing “self”. But self is nothing but an entity formed by constant interaction between the person and his culture & environment. So the concept of self expression can never be detached from expression of what individual assimilated from the society in which he lives.

An aspiring poet, who discovers his medium of expression longs for the refinement of his art. He longs for transference of his poetic skills from a self serving intend to a means for serving the society in which he lives. He prays for sublimation of the poet in him into a state that his poem becomes a response to the downtrodden of the society. This longing is nothing but a manifestation of his intense need to expand beyond limitations as a human being. In other words it is an expression of inherent divinity in him.

The liberation of the poet in him is his sole aim. He wishes to make his art as a medium of service to his society. This he can accomplish only by rendering himself into a catalyst for the change of society. He is ready to squander whatever he has for the betterment of weaklings. But, when he looks around, he sees his only wealth is his art.

A poet is a philosopher as he is always in search for the meaning of life. His creations are largely by product of this persistent search for truth and beauty. But this search is largely directed inward, towards one’s own self. He attempts to incorporate his search results with the bitter realities of the world outside. In the act, he is belittled and humbled by the large society around him that he feels helpless about the lack of practicability of his search results as far as concrete nature of difficulties of mundane world is concerned. He is too impotent to contribute anything in concrete terms for its betterments. His sole wealth is a collection of truths in their intangible abstract form. He is stunned by the wide gulf between his abstract world and the real tangible world outside him which lay submerged in never ending paradoxes.

The poem given below is nothing but an intense longing of a poet to consecrate what he has for one’s fellow beings. As any other true searcher he also reaches at the conclusion that liberation is not in amassing but in giving out in whatever way one can to the world outside. And he gives his song to the world hoping that it will convey his wistful longing to share the hardships of his fellow men.

Make me poet laureate( The Poem)

For the world that writhes in pain
For the child sucked out of the womb
for the prisoner in chains

For those who die in thousands
While the rich sort out their scores
For the unknown disappeared
In those boring foreign wars.

Make me poet laureate
For the stranger in the land
For the daughter who is raped
At her father's evil hand

For the runaway who sleeps
On a matress made of stone
For the worker out of work
Left to waste away at home.

Make me poet laureate
For the victimno one hears
For every child that's battered
While its screams are gagged by fear

For those too weak to argue
For those who have no tongue
For those to old to matter
In a world which loves the young.

Make me poet laureate
For the beggar at the gate
For those who cry for justice
But are told they have to wait.

Not for presidents or queens
Who are overwhelmed by choice,
But for those whose mouth are stopped--
Those who can't afford a voice.

-By Steve Turner

Write about the meaning of the poem. I would like it to be three to five paragraphs long.