The Suns of Poetry

For some, poetry aims highly at several things. As an art form it uses language in new and creative ways to express ideas and emotions; it creates its own vocabulary for expression of some of our deepest thoughts and feelings. The poet is, in the words of Indian teacher and mystic, Sri Aurobindo, the result of the harmonizing of
"five perennial powers: truth, beauty, joy, life and spirit." The one he terms, the "poet-seer" is someone who "sees differently, who thinks in another way... the poet shows us truth within its power of beauty, in its symbol or image, reveals it to us..."

Poets seek to illumine, to amplify or lift up in words, images and symbols in the way the visual artist does with his drawings or designs. For Aurobindo the term life carries further meaning than its base, scientific sense. In its use, Aurobindo means to signify "the life of feelings and passions. The inner life, which is infinite." Poets as seers and sages are gifted with the ability to perceive and elucidate upon those facets of living which many feel but can derive no words for meaning. The poet is much loved for the giving of words to otherwise unexpressed longings of ones' heart. Poetry then is the heart of the heart. Sri Aurobindo makes this clear when he writes about matters of truth, beauty and joy:

 Because Thou Art

Because Thou art All-beauty and All-bliss,

My soul blind and enamored yearns for Thee; 

It bears Thy mystic touch in all that is 

And thrills with the burden of that ecstasy. 

Behind all eyes I meet Thy secret gaze 

And in each voice I hear Thy magic tune: 

Thy sweetness haunts my heart through Nature's ways;

 Nowhere it beats now from Thy snare immune. 

It loves Thy body in all living things; 

Thy joy is there in every leaf and stone: 

The moments bring Thee on their fiery wings; 

Sight's endless artistry is Thou alone
Time voyages with Thee upon its prow
And all the future's passionate hope is Thou.

--Sri Aurobindo

The complete Works of Sri Aurobindo