The role of imagination in art and life

Explaining the impulse of inartistic people to create, allude to artistic works

I’M ABOUT TO make an admission that is very hard for any man to make, especially one as boring as myself. I like poetry. In my dorm room right now are at least 10 books of poetry, one of which, my copy of Walt Whitman’s collected writings, is always within arm’s reach on my desk.

Sometimes I have to decide between finishing a homework assignment and memorizing a poem, and the poem always wins.

I get phrases and, sometimes, whole poems stuck in my head, and all I can think to do is recite them to myself again and again. The odd thing is that it doesn’t feel much like a choice; the circumstances demand I fill my mind with poems.

It isn’t so odd, I suppose. Students often repeat lines from movies to their friends, whistle their favorite songs as they walk across campus, and draw in the margins of their homework assignments; it happens all the time.

The Atlantic, in its September issue, just did a fascinating display of presidential doodles, showing the artistic talents (or lack thereof) of presidents from Thomas Jefferson to George H.W. Bush, mostly on Whitehouse stationery and meeting agendas.

Nobody is beyond engaging in little bits of artistry, or at least appreciating and then feeling a compulsion to reproduce little bits of artistry, even if they have one of the most important jobs in the world.

Why does this happen to us? What can seemingly inartistic people gain from alluding to the art of others or creating their own little pieces of art? One obvious answer is that allusions and doodles are just a distraction from boredom.

Conversations can get boring sometimes, so why not throw in a reference to a television show or movie that everyone likes? Walking around is boring, so why not whistle an enjoyable tune?

Homework is the epitome of boredom; why not spice up your calculus assignment with your best rendition of a stick man?

Another possible answer is that we are all artists at heart, but the circumstances of life and our own fears of self-expression push us away from the artistic life.

I recall Flaubert said something in “Madame Bovary” to the effect that within the heart of every clerk and statesman lie the ruins of a poet.

Flaubert, however, was a pretentious and self-absorbed jerk, for lack of a printable expletive, and such a statement implies that Flaubert held himself in higher regard than the dilettantish bourgeoisie of his time.

I don’t like either of these answers. Sure life can be boring, but what makes my imaginative reality any more interesting than the abundant reality of human interaction, a walk down the street, or intellectual challenge?

Sure everyone has artistic tendencies, but does that mean everyone who fails to be an artist has repressed their true desires? Both answers imply that art is somehow a hierarchically higher experience than everyday life; the first by saying it frees us from lowness, the second by saying it is the flotsam and jetsam of our former highness.

This further implies that somehow artists are better or more mature people than the rest of us who live in the vulgar world of work and study, a notion that I simply cannot believe.

I’ve said what I don’t believe about art, now here’s what I do believe. The words “poetry” and “poem” ultimately come from the Greek verb “poieo,” which means “to make” or “to produce.”

A poem, or any work of art, is a production, and the material we draw upon for the production of our art, whether it’s the “Mona Lisa” or an air guitar version of “Foxy Lady,” is the stuff of imagination.

It is the imagination that allows us to connect our emotions and our experiences, our boredom and our wonder, our past and our present and our future in ways which reason cannot accomplish.

Imagination helps us make sense of our lives when reason tells us that life cannot make sense.

Imagination tells us that life is beautiful when reason can plainly show that it is nasty, brutish and short.

So why do I read poems obsessively? I think it has to do a lot with healing. The reasonableness of life can be brutal, and often we are hurt.

We all have times when life seems boring or doesn’t make sense or when people seem ugly, inside and out.

But none of those things are real, not so long as there is a song that justifies the ugliness of sound, a painting that justifies ugliness of sight, a poem that justifies the ugliness of thought.

When we are too bruised and battered by reasonable life to imagine our lives for ourselves, we find our power again in the imagination of the poet and the artist and the composer, and life becomes livable.

Comment on this story in the Opinion forum >>