I often find myself returning to the question that has shaped my years of engagement with poetry: what does it truly mean for a poem to live? Not merely to be written, published or praised, but to live, to vibrate with an energy that outlasts the moment of its construction. My conviction has only grown stronger with time, and it is rooted in an understanding that poetry is far more than a literary exercise or a polished aesthetic artefact. When put to the best use, poetry has not only the power to stir one’s emotions and thoughts, but also the soul itself! This truth has guided my reading, writing and teaching for years, and it continues to shape my assessment of what poetry ought to strive for.
As a young poet, I believed the craft was entirely in my hands. I laboured over rhyme, structure, and verbal precision as if every line were a machine in need of assembly. Yet experience taught me something subtler and infinitely more liberating. In the beginning, poets make their best efforts to fit words into their rhyme and lyric. However, as time passes and the ink mystifies, poets tend to let their thoughts conjure a rhyme in tune with the extraordinary struggles of ordinary life. That shift from control to surrender is not a loss of artistry. It is the maturation of consciousness. It is the moment when craft ceases to be a cage and becomes a channel.
I have often been asked what separates a poet who writes verse from a poet whose verse breathes. My answer remains the same. Poets who act as poets and write their words may seldom reach the threshold where there is no difference between the poet and poetry. On the other hand, experienced, wise and realised poets let their soul guide them and let their words write themselves. I am not merely trying to sound cryptic or mystic. I mean these words. The finest poetry is created when the poet’s self dissolves into an awareness deeper than ego or ambition. When language begins to speak on its own, one discovers that the poem was always waiting, like a truth dormant beneath the currents of ordinary thought.
History stands witness to what emerges when poetry reaches that luminous state. Poetry has offered respite to humanity’s sinking hopes time and again. T. S. Eliot’s exhibition of the Hindu Upanishadic wisdom, or Arnold’s graceful ‘majestic river’ that ‘floated on,’ Sri Krishna delivering the life lessons in Gita or Nirala seeking blessings for the world from Goddess Saraswati, Meera’s eternal quest of the divine love or the great poet Ravidas’ message to the world that divinity could be found in the lest expected places with purity in heart, poetry has kept the sheep of the human expectations afloat in the troubling water eager to wither it. These examples are not merely literary ornaments. They demonstrate the power of poetry to carry spiritual, emotional and cultural meaning across centuries.
That is why I believe the task of a poet is far greater than self-expression. A poem cannot remain confined to the subjectivity of its maker and still claim relevance. For ages, poetry has played its part in shaping, sustaining, comforting, warning, preparing and consoling the human hearts on various occasions. However, when poetry becomes too private to bear any message of utility for the masses, it might lose its charm and sanctity. Poets should ensure that they forge even their most private experiences and conflicts into something that mirrors what could be realised collectively by readers. The universal does not emerge by abandoning the personal but by refining it, transforming it, allowing it to echo with the experiences of humanity at large. A poet who guards the sanctity of a purely private emotion denies the poem its rightful journey into the hearts of others.
Throughout my career, I have witnessed how poetry can either elevate the human spirit or collapse into decorative triviality. When poetry becomes an exercise in stylistic flourish, stripped of intent or conviction, it diminishes itself. Readers may admire the vocabulary or the cleverness, but admiration is not the same as transformation. A poem must aspire to more. It must ask itself why it deserves to exist at all. Without such purpose, rhythm becomes noise, metaphor becomes clutter, and imagery becomes hollow spectacle.
As I reflect on the contemporary literary landscape, I find that the need for purposeful poetry is greater than ever. We inhabit an age of rapid consumption, where lines are skimmed rather than absorbed, and where temporary emotional release often replaces deeper contemplation. In such a world, it becomes the responsibility of poets to reaffirm the value of sincerity, vision and inner clarity. Poetry must not compete with fleeting digital content. It must rise above it through depth, insight and spiritual anchoring. Wise and responsible poets must ensure that the blue light emitted by screens of various sizes does not enchant them into seeking quick feedback, not based on thoughtful observation, but rather on an instantaneous emotional connection that lasts only a few seconds. After all, poets do have to face themselves – not only every night but also periodically and, at times, decades later… looking back at the corpus of their poetic creations… what would you rather do? Laugh and lament the hollow symbolism, or smile convincingly and rejoice in the images that would still stimulate your inner being?
I hope that poets of today recognise the sacredness of their craft. Poetry is not simply a creative outlet. It is a bridge between the inner and outer worlds, between the self and the collective human story. Through poetry, we preserve cultural wisdom, challenge moral complacency, soothe collective anxieties and nurture individual courage. The poems that endure are those that dare to speak with conviction and that arise from a place of humility before the vastness of human experience.
As I continue to write, teach and engage with poetry in all its forms, I remain convinced that the world needs not more poets but more awakened poets. Those who understand that a poem is born when language meets purpose. Those who recognise that meaning is not manufactured but revealed. Those who allow the poem to lead them rather than seeking to dominate it. In that surrender lies the power that has guided poetic traditions from the Vedic seers to the mystic saints to the visionaries of modern literature.
This is why I insist on a fundamental principle that every poet must eventually confront. I would like to end by saying that poetry is a gift of the Gods to human beings, and it must be consumed with dignity and prepared with purpose! Unless a poet ascribes purpose to his verse, no rhythm or musicality, no allusion or metaphors, no pun or irony could salvage the verse from obscurity… and eventually be subdued into the literary oblivion! Purpose is not a restriction. It is the soul of poetry. It ensures that a poem does not vanish into the haze of forgetfulness but stands firm as a meaningful contribution to human thought.
I write this not only as a poet but as someone who has spent more than half of his lifetime observing how poetry shapes human consciousness. If poetry continues to be written with depth, intention and spiritual humility, it will continue to serve humanity as it always has. It will continue to inspire, comfort and illuminate. And above all, it will continue to remind us that in a world increasingly driven by noise, poetry remains the quiet force that restores our capacity to feel, think and be human in the fullest sense.
That, to me, is the true power of poetry, and it is a power I believe every poet must honour.
Dr Alok Mishra
Poet, Literary Critic & Professor of English Literature
