When I was about 20 years old, a poet friend told me that
I was an enigma. I probably looked a little dumbfounded, because he quickly added (presumably so that I would know it was a compliment) that it was a "very endearing
quality." He was quite a bit older than I was (of course, when you're 20,
anyone over 30 is "quite a bit older"), but it was one of those rare moments
in life when you feel like someone has caught a glimpse of what's inside you
and has understood, on a deeper level than most people, who you are.
That's what--and who--a poet is.
And I don't mean someone who
writes verse: You don't have to write verse to be a poet (likewise, one is not
necessarily a poet just because he or she writes verse). A poet is the person
who sees and understands the enigmatic elements in another person, and a poet
is also the enigma. Round and round, back and forth: This is why poets--thinkers, bohemians, artists, and other authentic selves--are drawn to each other.
And Henry David Thoreau was most certainly a poet.
I think that Thoreau's Walden is one of those books that people want to have read but
don't actually want to read. In eleventh grade, we had to read a snippet of an
already small snippet of Walden out of our literature textbook. It contained
the passage that most people recognize and equate with Thoreau:
"Our life is frittered away by detail. . . . Simplicity, simplicity,
simplicity!" We probably even discussed it for half a class period.
But how many people have read that passage and thought
about what it really means? How many have gone even further and actually applied it to their lives?
And why is that the only passage from Walden that
students tend to be exposed to in school? I typed out three (single-spaced) pages of my favorite
quotes from the book. I considered them "favorites" because I found
them thought-provoking and/or applicable to my life. Or I found them to be
things I think--or have thought--only not with as much clarity or eloquence as
Thoreau. Consider, for instance, his perspective on clothing: "As for Clothing, .
. . perhaps we are led oftener by the love of novelty and a regard for the
opinions of men, in procuring it, than by a true utility." Think about
this the next time you put on a skirt, dress, or pair of pants that doesn't have a pocket.
Another choice quote: "While civilization has been
improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit
them."
And his take on education: "We boast that we belong
to the Nineteenth Century and are making the most rapid strides of any nation.
But consider how little this village does for its own culture. . . . It is time
that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we
begin to be men and women."
It is surprising to me how so little changes in so much
time (about 160 or so years since Thoreau penned Walden) . . . especially when so much
has changed.
Thoreau writes that he is "convinced, that if all
men were to live as simply as I then did, thieving and robbery would be
unknown. These take place only in communities where some have got more than is
sufficient while others have not enough." How come this was not the passage
we discussed in eleventh grade English class?
But the reason I know, with certainty, that Thoreau was a
poet is because of the line he wrote for me (and for every other poet): "The one who
came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and most dismal tempests,
was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may
be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure
love." This, too, is what makes poets different.
