Today while going around Paris, I bought a Poetry book, “Staying Alive – Real Poems for Unreal Times”. It was really not my intention to buy a book, I was just there in the store to accompany my friends who were looking for something English to read. What tourist after all would think of buying a book while in Paris? This is Paris! This is Europe! This is not the place where you spend the night reading a book. But I made the mistake of looking for the poetry section, made the mistake of going through the titles, made the mistake of leafing through the pages….Hence, I stayed behind in the bookstore and half an hour later, came out with a new book in hand. Worth 20 Euros. Worth two days lunch and dinner. But hell, it’s a poetry book…and for that I can sacrifice other purchases I may have had in mind.

What is it about poetry that makes it so unresistable, at least for me personally? I don’t really know. Its like that classic question that people would ask, especially those you’re getting to know for the first time, “What kind of music do you like?”. To this question, I have my generic, straight to the point and somewhat unexciting answer…”Various kinds, but I lean towards Rock/Blues/Band music.” And then there’s the other answer which I rarely give out, only to those I wouldn’t mind talking to at least, since it requires more talk and longer conversation…”I don’t have a particular preference. I like songs that have soul. Songs with a beat that matches its words.” Songs with soul. I don’t really know the best way to explain it, but that’s the best I can do.

The same thing goes with poetry. I don’t prefer any particular, any particular period or any particular writer. The poems I like best are the poems that speak to me. Whether they talk of an emotion I’ve had, an experience I’ve had or something I can emphatize with determines the extent of just how much the poem “speaks to me”.

I’ve had my book with me for only a few hours, and already something is worth quoting. At the first few pages are some thoughts on poetry by poets themselves. Here’s one which can begin to explain this fixation I have:

“Poetry is that which arrives at the intellect by way of the heart.”
- R.S. Thomas