Szárnyú
is the
Hungarian word for "winged." It is pronounced "SARN-yoo," with the
"SARN" rhyming with the English "barn." There is something
akin
to flying in poetry. A poem transports us to another place, another
reality, another perspective, another feeling. And it is often as
illusive as a bird in flight.
A few words about poetry: The poet Jane Hirshfield says this: "Poetry's
work is the clarification and magnification of being. Each time we
enter its word-woven and musical invocation, we give ourselves over to
a different mode of knowing: to poetry's knowing, and to the increase
of existence it brings, unlike any other."*
If this seems lofty, and perhaps unattainable, consider what Socrates
said, four hundred years before Jesus walked the dusty roads
of Jerusalem: "Poets are light and winged and holy things,
and
there is no invention in them until they have been inspired and are out
of their senses, and their minds are no longer in them."**
And then Socrates
says it directly: "God takes away the minds of poets . . . God is the
speaker, and through them converses with us."** Now that's a heavenly
calling!
*Jane
Hirshfield, Nine Gates:
Entering the Mind of
Poetry
(HarperCollins, 1997), p. vii. **The Dialogues of Plato,
volume I (trans. Benjamin Jowett (Random House, 1937), p. 289. (I
modified these statements to make them inclusive---the spirit of Jowett
perforce must accept them, and I'm sure the spirits of Plato and
Socrates would be delighted! If it seems I use "spirit" in a fast
and loose way, you can simply consider "spirit" to mean their existence
in us!)
Poetry
Table of Contents
Simply click on the
poet's
name to see all of the poet's work included here, or click on
the
title of a poem to read it specifically.