By Mursi Saad El-Din Whenever I feel under the weather, I pick up my New Oxford Book of English Verse and seek out favourite poems. I always find in poetry some kind of a refuge, a companion and a relief. I don't think that using the expression "favourite poems" is correct: when it comes to poetry, everything is a favourite. What I'm trying to say is that I believe in the immortality of poetry, and what is more its global nature. Poetry has no nationality and this is why we enjoy reading or listening to the recital of a poem by an English poet as much as one by an Egyptian, a Frenchman or an Indian. One of my best loved poems is by the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, who committed suicide on 14 April 1930. Mayakovsky, in the words of Herbert Read, was "by all accounts the inspiration of the revolutionary movement in Russian literature, a man of great intelligence and of inspired literance." When he died he left behind a piece of paper on which he had written this poem: As they say "the incident is closed" Love boat smashed against moves. I'm quits with life. No need itemising mutual griefs woes offences Good luck and good bye. In his analysis of the poem, Read writes, "There is no need to itemise. There is no need to detail the circumstances leading to this poet's death. Obviously there was a love affair, but to our surprise there were also the moves -- the social conventions against which this love boat smashed." But I think there was more to it than that. Mayakovsky was in a very special sense the poet of the Revolution. He celebrated its triumph and its achievements in verse. But he became disillusioned when he realised that the revolution had evidently not created an atmosphere of intellectual confidence and moral freedom. Going though the history of poetry in the world, we cannot but wonder whether poets were always a source of worry for rulers. Garcia Lorca was shot by Fascists at Granada in 1936. In England, in Russia, in America or in Germany, writes Herbert Read, "it is the same: in one way or another poetry is stifled. That is the worldwide fate of poetry. It is the fate of our civilisation, and Mayakorsky's death merely proves that in this respect the new civilisation of Russia (Communism) is only the same civilisation in disguise." Read wrote that in 1938. He believes that any poet or painter who has survived the test of time, shows some degree of development. Indeed, he goes on to say, "to trace this development in a poet like Shakespeare or a painter like Titian or a composer like Beethoven is partly an explanation of the enduring fascination of their work. This development can be correlated with incidents in their lives and with circumstances of their time. It is a process similar to a seed falling on fertile ground, germinating and growing and in due course reaching maturity. Just as certainly as the flower and the fruit are implicit in the single seed," continues Reed, "so the genius of a poet or painter is contained within the individual." But the growth is unique, the configuration is unique, the fruit unique. A poet is a tree which one year produces plums, a few years later apples, and finally cucumbers. Are we now going through the cucumber period? Has the tree of poetry run out of plums and apples? Is poetry, as is often said these days, dead? Judging by the news of poetry this is far from being true. On English poetry web sites I have found a number of encouraging items. Last Thursday was National Poetry Day, which was characterised by a number of events, including a tour by poets from each of the four home counties, visiting the four capital cities: London, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast. Forward Poetry Prizes were given and a number of poets gave readings of their works. The main Forward Poetry Prize is worth �10,000 and goes to the author of the year's best collection. And there are other prizes, including, of course, the Nobel Prize for Literature which in 1995 was awarded to Seamus Heaney, a poet.
