Because I think poetry can often describe objects and events more truthfully (from more angles, thus producing a fuller model) than can other kinds of statements, it's useful for communication.
Agreed. Poets write poetry for others to read. Like you, I read poetry to see what others might think and feel. Poetry is very concise and rich communication, and the utilitarian in me delights in its concentration. Well-executed, it provides a delightful map of someone else's perceptions and feelings, and occasionally, inspiration for my own thoughts.
You think poetry is less shareable than empiricism, and I think that's basically a crock of shit because I know poetry can contain an empirical view.
We could be tripping over the word 'shareable' here. Here's what I mean by it...
Poetry requires a competent writer and an astute reader, and the truth it communicates is a personal, transient truth, a postcard or a snapshot if you will, of the thoughts and feelings of the poet at the time the poem was penned.
The Windhover said:
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!
In fact, poetry is equally capable of creating 'fictitious truths' -- compelling, moving fantasies that have no grounding in any objective experience a reader might encounter.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci said:
I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
And equally, what we get from a poem and what the poet pens could be very different, and time and distance and experience may devalue a poem.
T.S Eliot said:
No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.
So from this I conclude that poetry conveys an experience that is not necessarily shareable, that is not necessarily objective truth, that is not necessarily objectively reliable, and that depends very much on the qualities that poet and reader bring to the communication.
That doesn't make it unimportant -- I think that psychologically and socially it
is important. But I think that poetry can conflate inner, transient, subjective perception with that big, reliable beast of a reality in which we all dwell.
When it comes to expressing personal opinion and perception, I like poetry as well as I like any other medium, and better than most. But when it comes to finding truth that
anyone can share, that will outlast the poet's experiences, that reach beyond the poet's biases... poetry is not the medium I would choose for the same reason Eliot had reservations.
And for that reason, I'm concerned that mysticism doesn't translate well between people. One's God of humility, sacrifice and compassion can be another's God of arrogance, selfishness and narcissism -- the same mystical process and even the same inspirational poem producing two very different perceptions. Indeed, I think we have evidence that this is exactly what occurs.
For example, ask two Christians what the hymn
Onward Christian Soldiers might mean... One might tell you that the battle is struggle against one's inner sin; another that it's a struggle against attacks on the Church; another that it's a triumphant Christian empire covering the land. Probably its author,
Sabine Baring-Gould, had very particular thoughts in mind when he penned it in 1865. Given his nationality, class, era, and the comments he made when he penned it, we might guess what he intended, but what it means to Christians now could be very different.
I love poetry, but don't trust poets alone to get anything reliably
right. In fact, while T.S. Eliot seemed to be aware of the limits of the 'competence of poetry (and poets)', I don't trust most poets to know even that. The very medium in which they write, and the verve and zeal with which they must pen, almost demands that they over-stretch. And that's what I see in Newton, Goedel and Einstein too. They were genius when they let their poetry inspire their empirical investigations, but flipped into crackpots the moment they were unable to test their thoughts against nature, or reconcile nature telling them NO.