Poetic Philosophy

Poetic Philosophy Poetic Paper

Abstract: Why would anyone need to hire a poet today? In a world where we always seek meaning and purpose, where usefulness of everything is measured by the results they bring, a poem could be literally the last thing one could need. Yet, a poem has the power to bring a different perspective, to connect us with the depths of our soul that are now unseen. Verse has the power to break the glass through which we see the world, to show us an irrational path that may help us understand the lack of logic in the life that we live. In a utilitarian world, the most useless thing is the thing we need. We need poets. But more importantly, we fear them and those things they can say in verse…

Are poets needed today? A simplistic question that begs for an answer. And the only way to give that answer is to explore human psyche and its needs more deeply.

Today’s utilitarian world is governed by forces that bow to result and what is to be won.

We strive to have things done. We seek more and more.

And that is why today’s world needs the useless more than ever before!

Poems can be emotional.

Poems can be irrational.

Poems can be raw.

Poems can be gentle.

Poems can be meaningless.

Our world is void of emotions. We have learnt to constantly communicate with each other, to express ourselves, to live our life to the fullest, only to trick us into a state that we feel nothing at all in the end. We swim on a surface full of likes and fake perfection, while the depths of our soul crave for affection. A poem can help us trigger things we have forgotten are even there…

Our world is full of logic. We analyze everything to their very end. We need data and detect patterns; we extract rules and laws and then try to formulate theories to explain what is going on. But logic is based on axioms that are unproven – even the most obvious ones. Poetry can help us be irrational again. And see the world with fresh air!

Our world is polished and full of correctness. We never speak out what we feel or what we believe, out of fear of being rude or out of fear for what others think. We never even speak openly to ourselves, out of fear that we might be hurt. Poetry can be raw and just show what is there. With words that can have a real impact, just by conveying the message without anyone to interfere.

Our world is harsh and full of pain. People suffer often in vain. Poems can offer consolation to hurting souls by giving beauty where there is only pain.

We want to believe that our world is meaningless. We strive everyday down a path that we do not understand. We do not know why we live or what death is. We have stopped wondering about existence and being, we have alienated ourselves from philosophy and the miracle of living. Poetry can ignite the spark again in our souls, to bring us in touch with what we knew but now is gone.

The poet will not provide answers. He or she will just illuminate the lost souls. And the poem will serve as a beacon that shows all possible paths – ahead and backwards – leaving to us the decision on where to go. The verse will serve as a hammer that shatters the glass through which we view not only the cosmos but also our internal world.

In that sense, poetry can be therapeutic. Catharsis can be attained when we access our emotions not via a filter but by simply speaking them. And the same applies to all our fears related to existence and death; things that constantly trouble us, but we tend to hide them under a fake cloak of knowledge even though we know nothing besides the things that we feel.

A verse can be just what you need to see clearly in a world obscured by so much light that at the end you see nothing besides a blur. Sometimes we need shadows to decipher forms. Sometimes it is darkness that reveals our inner worlds. Poems could offer that view and make us cry, in a world where we tend to glorify smiles.

I have intentionally left out scientific evidence on the benefits of art.

Art can be therapeutic. That is well established in literature and there are numerous scientific research papers explaining how and why that happens. Art therapy can effectively reduce symptoms of mental disorders like depression or anxiety (Hu et al., 2021). Such therapy has proven to be effective across multiple age groups and settings (Slayton et al., 2010) and, in summary, it can not only improve your mental health but it can also support you in having a better quality of life in general (Shukla et al., 2022).

Since poetry is a form of art, it can surely help in that sense.

But the point of this paper is not to pinpoint the obvious, but to explain something beyond that. Poetry can help in many other ways via altering the philosophical viewpoint we take on this cruel world. Besides just being a form of expression that alleviates anxiety and helps the person’s psyche, poetry – as mentioned above – offers a way to walk down paths we once trod but are now too afraid to even talk of. It is the darkness or irrationality, the terror of non-understanding, the raw emotions that poetry brings to the surface that we need to face a world that is not conveniently logical or understood or friendly, as we hoped it would.

That is why poets are needed!

In today’s world where we seek useful things.

The most useless ones are the ones we need!

(That is why poets are feared by most!)

Speaking in verses, one can express all those things that cannot be expressed or explained. Paradoxically enough, these are the things that we better understand, because they resonate with the weird world in which we stand.

Remember, in the beginning there was the Word.

But before that everything was covered in silence.

And it is this primordial power that drives the cosmos.

Poetry gives a gateway to this force.

Speaking in silence.

Touching the world in which we were born…

Touching something we did not know was still there.

Expressing what we try so hard to avoid…

Destroying the useless need of knowing or understanding.

Reminding us that the cosmos is within us.

Making no sense.

Pain. Happiness. Confusion. Expressed in verse!

References

Hu, J., Zhang, J., Hu, L., Yu, H., & Xu, J. (2021). Art Therapy: A Complementary Treatment for Mental Disorders. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.686005

Shukla, A., Choudhari, S. G., Gaidhane, A. M., & Quazi Syed, Z. (2022). Role of Art Therapy in the Promotion of Mental Health: A Critical Review. Cureus. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.28026

Slayton, S. C., D’Archer, J., & Kaplan, F. (2010). Outcome Studies on the Efficacy of Art Therapy: A Review of Findings. Art Therapy, 27, 108-118. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2010.10129660

Few words about the author

Spyridon I. Kakos is a researcher and writer based in Athens, Greece. He initially studied as a chemical engineer and conducted doctoral research for multi-layered printed circuit boards. He has also completed studies in business administration, law and psychology. He has been working as a senior advisor in the IT consulting sector for decades, while at the same time writing actively in the areas of philosophy and poetry. He is the Editor in Chief of Harmonia Philosophica since its inception and manages the Poetic Philosophy brand along with its related poetic ecosystem.

This article online

This article has been posted online in the following sites:

https://philpapers.org/rec/KAKOTN-2

https://www.academia.edu/170292286/On_the_need_for_poets_today