Thoreau and...Poetry?

 

The redbud is just starting to bloom

April is National Poetry Month in this country. I love poetry. I have always loved poetry. Some of my earliest memories are my beloved Grandma Skatzes telling me nursery rhymes, and what are nursery rhymes if not poetry? And by hook or by crook, or sheer luck perhaps, I never had my love of poetry extinguished by a misguided teacher determined to make me flay and gut every poem they could get theirs hands on.

So even with decades of poetry in me, was I ever more than vaguely aware of Henry David Thoreau as a poet? Let alone consider him a poet rather than a naturalist and essayist?

In a word, no. In fact, I would think of Thoreau as a surveyor or pencil maker before I thought of him as much more than an amateur poet at best.

The Academy of American Poets, as part of National Poetry Month, highlighted Thoreau as a poet in one of their Poem-a-Day emails. Seriously? If you dig deeper into the Academy's website and look at his bio, the Academy itself notes that although Henry "thought of himself primarily as a poet during his early years, he was later discouraged in this pursuit and gradually came to feel that poetry was too confining." 

The reality is buried in the phrase "discouraged in this pursuit." His poetry was criticized, usually in correspondence and not in print, by, among others, Margaret Fuller during her editorship of The Dial. Henry's mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, also discouraged him from pursuing poetry, realizing early on that Henry's intellectual strength did not come out in his poems. 

So imagine my laughter earlier this month when my longtime friend Ken presented me with a birthday poem he asked ChatGPT  to write in Henry's style. 

It produced this: 

Oh joyous day, it's your birth,
A time to celebrate your worth,
Amidst the bustle and the noise,
I pause and feel a deep rejoice.

The world spins round and round each day,
But today it's your time to play,
To take a breath and bask in light,
To revel in this moment bright.

For you, my friend, I wish the best,
May life be filled with love and zest,
May all your dreams come true and more,
And blessings rain down, rich and pure.

So here's to you, on this special day,
May happiness be yours in every way,
May you grow wiser with each year,
And find joy in all that's dear.

Happy birthday, dear one, may you shine,
Like the sun that warms this heart of mine,
May you thrive and bloom like a flower,
And find peace in every hour.

Ken noted that the poem didn't seem "especially Thoreauvian" to him, but thought that maybe the Chatbot drew from other works.

I did not hesitate to respond: "Thoreau did write poetry. He was a mediocre poet even by the standards of the mid-1800s. The ChatGPT may have topped him. Thoreau certainly would not have been that exuberant, although it did capture his love of nature. It reminds me of Twain's remark to his wife when she repeated his profanity back to him: 'You got the words right but you don't know the tune.'"

Compare that one to a poem that Henry wrote:

I was made erect and lone,

And within me is the bone;

Still my vision will be clear,

Still my life will not be drear,

To the center all is near.

Where I sit there is my throne.

If age choose to sit apart,

If age choose, give me the start,

Take the sap and leave the heart.

You be the judge.