Matter Equals Energy
By Doug Talley 

Years ago, when I first began writing poetry, a friend shared with me something he had read in Confucius. The ancient sage had just two rules of advice for the poet: (1) Say what needs to be said, and (2) Stop. Perhaps the greatest challenge in writing any poem is to have something worthwhile to say. All other elements – metaphor, allusion, form, meter, rhyme, if any – become secondary to this crucial primary element. The 20^th century American poet Ezra Pound declared that the poet who really had something to say would eventually find a way to say it.  There is no substitute in poetry for worthy subject matter.  As in physics, so it is in poetry. Matter equals energy. 

Dante believed the three great subjects of poetry were war, love and virtue. More modest topics may qualify also, if the poet offers some worthwhile and engaging insight previously not considered. The first time I read The Consolation of Philosophy, by the sixth century Roman statesman Boethius, I was amazed by the abundance of his ideas – one delightful insight followed another like an unbroken string. He wrote the volume, a mixture of prose and poetry, while unjustly imprisoned for treason before being condemned to death in 524 A.D. Consider the following two ideas, the first in poetry and the second a syllogism in prose:

O felix hominum genus  Si vestros animos amor Quo caelum regitur regat.

O happy race of men, If the love that rules the stars Rules as well your hearts!

Nam quoniam beatitudinis adeptione fiunt homines beati, beatitudo vero est ipsa divinitas, divinitatis adeptione beatos fieri manifestum est: sed uti iustitiae adeptione iusti, sapientiae sapientes fiunt, ita divinitatem adeptos deos fieri simili ratione necesse est. Omnis igitur beatus deus. . . . .

“Since men become happy by the acquisition of happiness, and happiness itself is divinity, it also follows that men become happy by the acquisition of divinity: but just as the acquisition of justice makes men just, and the acquisition of wisdom makes them wise, so also by similar reasoning the acquisition of divinity makes them gods.  Therefore, every happy man becomes a god . . . .”

I love both these insights and have benefited greatly by them. I appreciate the idea that the divine affection that shapes the stars might also shape my heart. I further appreciate the implicit understanding of the doctrinal principle of exaltation, that the acquisition of true happiness brings with it divinity. Toward the end of his life Boethius clearly had something to say, and found a way to say it, even while organizing his matter in a rather unconventional mixture of poetry and prose. 

A while ago I received a poetry submission that attracted me because it offered an intriguing idea, and seemed to illustrate so simply the paramount principle of having something unique and important to say. I offer it here for consideration:

Accumulations
by Mark Sheffield Brown

Note how the poem, at first blush, seems devoid of any poetic ornament. There is nothing flowery in it, and accordingly, nothing deters from the central, fascinating proposition.  When Einstein demonstrated in his famous equation that energy has mass, it was astonishing. Yet it seems equally astonishing to apply that equation to our common, every day lives. The insight that physical light accumulates over time serves as a symbol of infinite suggestiveness.  That is, if something as light and frothy as sunshine accumulates imperceptibly with the passage of time to such great weight, what else might also be accumulating without our precise understanding? Love? Happiness? Knowledge?  Eternal life? Unaware as they are, the couple of this poem suggests the accumulations could be anything and everything. 

With each reading of the poem its mystery grows richer. Find a calculator, do the math yourself, and another dimension opens. The passage of time indicated by the poem proves more complicated than its first reading might suggest.  Or on a third or fourth reading consider precisely the words chosen to deliver the poem’s proposition. Just what, exactly, is the arrival that occurs at the end of the poem? Arrival from where and to where? Is it the end of a mere drive in the country, or of a journey, or of a lifetime? Or ask why the sunlight falls upon, and is divided by, the “shoulders”, and not some other body part? Does the selection of this particular word suggest that the collective burdens, which we bear over great lengths of time, perhaps even twenty tons to a shoulder, are in hindsight really not so difficult and challenging after all? Without being the least bit didactic, the poem seems quite hopeful and comforting. After the tenth reading or so, I realized the poem was a kind of accumulation itself, reinforcing its own central proposition. With each reading, the poem itself “shoulders” additional possibilities and acquires new meaning, suggesting its own infinite accumulation of light. 

Receiving periodically a poem like this one makes the work of an editor fully worthwhile. I extend my appreciation to the author for submitting it, and for reinforcing the notion that no element in poetry can compensate for the lack of a good idea. Matter does, indeed, equal energy. 

Following the advice of Confucius and having said what needs to be said, I can now stop, except to add a biographical note. Mark Sheffield Brown earned his MFA in Creative Writing from Boise State University and teaches English at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls. He is married to the former Suzanne Day and together they have two daughters.