Spirituality in Poetry

Poetry is the language of the noble. It is the primary preserver of the essence of communication. Poetry gives differentiation from the ordinary to the extra-ordinary meaning of verbal communication. It is the classical language of the heaven down to the earth that man may understand that he knows little and will need to learn and hear more. Without poetry, religion loses its tongue. And since man hardly gives away his pleasurable state, the artist is strengthened by his poetry to stand aloof for truth and for correct portrayal. When men settle down away from their unseriousness for the home truth about their affairs, it is their poetic tone that distinguishes the serious from the mundane.

Emotion is central to the potency of poetic effusion because emotion-laced activity brings about quality in such engagement. So, the emotional chamber of man is the Diaz where poetry stands to flourish. However, poetry is not a mere recollection of spontaneous flow of emotion; it is the spiritual and classical nucleus of expression. It is that aspect of language which evokes the fundamental subject of a message whose capacity to transmit such messages does not only lie in its understanding but as the only vehicle for deciphering the unintended essential meaning inherent in it.

The spirituality of communication is its poetice where its elegance and beauty are the deployment of figurative tongue that aptly conveys messages in pleasant and memorable sounds which vividly brings home the versatility of verbal communication and the vast meaningful content of it. Without poetry language hardly grows. The spiritual evocation of poetry is a dimension that is of personal effect to the writer and the listener.

Poetry is the garment of the philosopher, it is the mouth-musk of the king, and it is the sweetener for the melody-maker. In the poet, is a naked being; a puritanic absolutist, a hard core craftsman in quest of perfect order. In the story man, I see an admonisher, a satirist, ironic and a cynic in search of order. With his little logic, he appeals to mortals to see light. A playwright comes to me as a comic character, a logical entertainer that caricatures the folly of man. The philosopher comes to me as a great king, a wise man, a thinker, a leader and a light, so sober and reflective. He is a master of deeper meanings. However, what is final is that poetry is the soul of creative writing. With it all other genres come to life. Any gathering of humans without a poet is a bunch of soulless mortals.

Poetry is life. It elevates anything it touches. In sports, the most essential element is motion. Motion in the live of men activates their dreams and quests. Poetry without a feeling of movement, rhythm and sequence which are the inherent qualities of motion becomes lifeless and inactive. The beauty in sport acts is not the result as in scoring a ‘goal’ or ‘landing’ but the athleticism in the procedure leading to it. It is about coordinated defiance of gravity. Poems take this beautiful sequence too. What is poetry without performance or rendition? Since poetry is an emotional thing, it must evoke inner power and logic. The logic of poetry should contain good sense of reasoning, rhythm and sequential arrangements of thought and meaning. These primary elements should be brought to bear for a wholesome creation. Craft and musicality add colour and glamour to its wholesomeness. The first identifiable quality of a poem is the thrill it sends down the writer and the listener upon rendition.

Poetry is not just about entertainment, it purifies the communicative mind. The poet is likely to succeed as a politician or a leader than the non-poets. This is because the poet has the capacity to forgo the material that others may want to garner. He is a naked being and less materialistic. He is the one with the third and the fourth eyes and since politics is the vehicle for attaining leadership, it is those with extra eyes that should lead the rest.

The poet is a bold character with limited audience. The philosopher is a bold character with great audience. And you can only have one poet or philosopher on earth. If one comes to you as Obi Nwakama or Ahmed Maiwada or Angela Agali or Gbemisola Adeoti or Ubo Udeozo or Emmanuel Egya or Maryam Okediran or Gabriel Okara or Wole Soyinka or Mamman Shata or Paul Liam, they are just one being with one language.