The power of poetry to prolong a generation – an envelope full of verse
Yesterday I received my quarterly mailing from the Poetry Book Society. This time the book was When God is a Traveller by 
Arundhathi Subramaniam, who writes in English but lives in India.
As always, there’s something appealing about the slim book of verse with an exotic title; something that encourages both reading and thinking. Inside the colourful cover I love the way the poet uses the page, laying out her poem to enhance it’s meaning and to guide the eye to the emphasised bits.
I haven’t had time to really study this book yet, but already I’ve found my favourite poem: ‘How Some Hindus Find Their Personal Gods’. The process is logical and sensible:
It’s about learning to trust
the tug
that draws you to a shadowed alcove
The seeker recognises the god as he who is
… content to play a cameo
in everyone’s life but your own.
Isn’t this kind of recognition at the heart of all spiritual experience?
Along with the book and the Bulletin I’ve also received a booklet, Next Generation Poets 2014: a selection of poems from writers who might be the leaders of poetry in the future. This is part of a major campaign by the Society to bring to their work to the public. They define the next generation poets as having published their first collection within the last decade. As might be expected, the photos and brief bios in the booklet indicate that most of the poets are quite young, though a few could describe their ages as ‘late youth’.
I wonder if someone who published their first collection at the age of 90 would still be of the ‘next generation’. I like the idea of this strange extension of life. How long does a ‘next generation’ last? Perhaps in twenty years time their spirit can look down from Heaven (or up from the other place) and watch budding poets reading their collection.
e a m harris 