by Garry Spotts

Created on: July 12, 2009   Last Updated: July 14, 2009

The World Will End When The Poet is Silent.

Society would be poorer without the poet. Since antiquity, the poet has been the mouthpiece of the Muse, the conveyor of history and the echo of inner pangs that ring with truth. The ineffable swell of emotion that defies the logic of prose can only be captured and communicated by the Poet.

Sans the poet, music would have melody, but no meaning. Without the poet, love would lose its voice; rage would have no path for expression but through violence. Poets have been and are the sage wisdom of the ages, the revolutionary railing against injustice and the herald of heroic deeds, the harbinger of historic tales.

How might we live without the poet? We would live far more impoverished lives without the song set to no music. Empowered as we are by the sweet and sullen sound of the poet, we cherish their pen; we fixate upon the lips which drip with words we ourselves can not command.

A great many of us are the progeny of the Poet who sang through your father's lips and charmed your mother's ear; the offspring of men and women who lived vicariously as the echo of the muse. Society more than needs the poet, it wants the poet, it covets the gift that transforms human breath into immortal winds.

The poet plays the precious instrument, the voice. It is the first wind, the first brass, the first stringed instrument: the archetype from which all others have been crafted. The voice is the passionate percussion driven by the steady rhythmic cadence of the heart, beating to the lyric of the poet.

How can society thrive without the poet? The poet moves the soul of the civil and the savage; it is the common creed of every human whose breath forces its way through vocal cords, over tongue, past lips to make a sound and to banish the silence.

I once heard it said that "Music is the intelligent arrangement of sound and silence." I say it is poetry and the poet who gives intelligence to indiscriminate sound, the groans and chuckles of life.

There is no province of human life that can escape the reach of the poet, no one untouched by their craft. Every memorable quote has poetry in it, even if it is prose. Poetry is the sweet syllogism of existence that says, "I am, therefore I speak!" To ignore this truth is to deny your life, your vitality and the hope of hearing the words which inspire.

Every award for which the voice is its instrument owes its life to the poet, every product owes its profit to the poet, and every preacher's power is on loan from the poet. Ballads and blues, hard rock and hip-hop are the children of the poet. The preamble promises of political power-seekers are flaccid and impotent without the poetic voice.

Lullaby and funeral dirge alike are siblings from the parentage of the poet. Poetry sings us to sleep as we enter and as we exit.

Does society need Poetry, you ask? I reply, "What is Society but Poetry and Poet?"

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