Last fall, I asked my friend Paul what the difference between poetry and a spell might be. The poet (me), doesn’t see a difference. The magic worker might, at least to some degree, I surmised.
Paul answered, “Intent.”
Perhaps, yes.
Kristoffer Hughes has written eloquently about the Welsh “Englynion,” a form of “song-spell” that “often appears hand in hand with acts of magic.” Hughes notes that “Bards of the Celtic nations were magicians in their own rights who used words to transform, inspire, satirize, create, and also destroy” (Celtic Magic 5).
Similarly, the ancient Gaels knew the power of language. In some Scottish clans, there were two crimes that could result immediately in exile (a fate worse than death for a clan-based people): murder and satire. (Imagine if today’s satirists–Jon Stewart, Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver–were silenced for effective critiques.)
When I write poetry I am intentionally opening a moment of sacred memory and vision. I always hope my language and form evokes time, image, feeling, something deeper and nameless, something that we can’t get to via linearity and direct action.
If that is not intent, it is something very, very close. Scholars in sociolinguistics and rhetoric have long held the power of language–what we speak and how we speak it shapes our world, shapes our ability to think about and perceive our world, and imbues meaning into the everyday.
Do we forget the power of words, of language, or poetry if we separate poetry from spells? Perhaps. Is ritual possible without some attention to poetic language? Perhaps.
Or perhaps poetry is simply one more way into the deeper “spaces” we seek on our spiritual paths.
* * *
At some point I’ll write more about this. Until then, I was intrigued by this post by two poets discussing their processes and the connections between poetry and ritual.
Yvonne Aburrow writes, “[P]oetry is related to theology and magic; they use the same twilight mode of consciousness. Spells and ritual words often take the form of poetry. . . ”
I agree. you can read the full text here.
On Poetry: A Conversation
by Sarah Sadie and Yvonne Aburrow
Tree of Many Feathers: 