# Poetry and Self-Transformation

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Roger White, Poetry and Self-Transformation, Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 1989, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Poetry and Self-Transformation*
> 
> by Roger White
> 
> Y NON-BAHA'i FRIENDS who are poets frequently
> complain that among friends and members of their
> fa milies to whom they show their work they encounter in-
> difference, contempt, embarassment, or sometimes hostility,
> which heightens their sense of alienation and uselessness.
> They are made to feel frivolous and somewhat less than
> respectable. They have no experience of audience and feel
> that they are writing in a void , speaking to themselves in a
> vacuum , presenting their private view of the world with no
> confidence that anyone else might see the world as they do .
> Poetry is no longer very accessible to the average reader;
> it is rare to find families and groups of friends gathering
> together to read poetry; it is increasingly seen as a special-
> ized and elitist interest divorced from real life, and few con-
> sider it a source of pleasure and insight. Poetry is still written
> and read, of course, but it has taken refuge in universities,
> creative writing workshops, and obscure coffeehouses. Sel-
> dom is it recogoized as a vital means of communicating in-
> formation of a kind that is found only in poems-bulletins
> 
> " Reprinled from The ]o"mal 0/ BaM '( Stlldies, vol. I. no. 2 (1988) pp.
> 6 1- 69. Copyright © 1988 Associalion for Bahli'; Studies.
> 
> 2     Roger While
> 
> from the unconscious, " those sly reports on private ex-
> perience, voices of the inner self . . . .. as Louise Bernikow
> has remarked .'
> Poets are in part to blame for the diminished regard in
> which poetry is held that results in society's impoverishment
> and deprives the poet of an audience. Without a common
> world perspective, poets are forced to delve in to their own
> psyches with the result that much modern poetry is des-
> pairing or seemingly deliberately difficult-one might say           II
> written in a private code. Many modern poets who write con-
> fessional verse invite us channlessly to follow them not only
> into the bedroom but also the bathroom, and might dismiss
> our reluctance to do so as squeamishness, not noticing our
> yawns. Poetry that celebrates natural speech and activity can
> make unnatural demands on our sympathy and psychic
> fastid iousness. In an age of instant gratification a consumer
> society seeks consumer-oriented entertainments; we have
> perhaps deserved the disposable poems and novels we are
> given in such abundance, thirst as we might for literature that
> affirms life and identity, and reinforces our human ity in its
> struggle to resist the assault of all that is mechanistic and ro-
> botic. It remains the task of poetry to translate into words,
> with intensity and economy, the inexpressible with an im-
> mediacy that is not achieved in other art fo rms. T he poet
> must not just describe the loaf but provide readers with the
> experience of eating it; the poet places the bread on the
> tongue. When the poet fails in this duty, readers will turn to
> films and novels for the kind of information about life that it
> is the poet's responsibility and privilege to provide.
> Poets learn to live with the disquieting knowledge that
> more people aspire to write poetry than read it, and that more
> read it than buy it. This situation, it might be supposed , will
> gradually change in a Baha'i society whose members are
> trained not to confuse who they are with what they do; who
> accept the necessity of inhabiting a social persona without
> Poetry and Self- Trans/ormation       3
> having it overshadow the soul within that stands naked be-
> fore its Creator; and whose interior lives are privately called
> into account each day, not morbidly, but in a spirit of crea-
> tive self-interest that fosters growth towards fuller human de-
> velopment _If the best poets are indeed, as has been said of
> them, the antennae of civilization, we might do well to con-
> sult them_ Their wisdom, Inder Nath Kher insists, "cannot
> be translated into discursive prose_ "2 One of the highest
> services they perform is to reacquaint us with our true feel-
> ings which we put away in our need to manipulate our work-
> aday world_ But if we are correct in respecting poets as
> servants, we err in demanding that they be slaves to or
> propagandists of our view of reality_ Very fine poetry has
> been created by poets writing both within and without a re-
> ligious framework_ It is chastening for the Baha'i poet rising
> rapturously from devotions, and bent on "committing liter-
> ature" (I accept blame for the phrase) by enshrining pious
> thoughts in poems, to recall T.S. Eliot's admonition that peo-
> ple who write devotional verse are usually writing as they
> want to feel, rather than as they do feel.
> Many serious poets and other artists fee l that they are at
> war ,vith the age_ Through this estrangement, both the poet
> and potential readers are the losers. Most of us have forgot-
> ten our discovery of poetry as children through nursery
> rhymes when we were fascinated to learn that words dance
> and resonate and have the capacity to provide the epiphanic
> moment, to transport, to express something we didn't know
> how to say, to reveal something we didn't know we knew. If
> the writer has done a valid job, the act of writing a poem has
> changed the writer, and we in reading it are put in touch with
> a power that transforms us- if only by reminding us that
> transfor mation is possible. T his is what we look for in art.
> Cyril Connolly would have it that, "The true function of a
> writer is to produce a masterpiece ... no other task is of any
> consequence . . . writers engaged in any literary task which
> 4     Roger While
> 
> is not an assault on perfection . . . might as well be peeling
> potatoes. "3
> Carol Stemhell, writing in the New York Times, relates how
> her fri end , Michael, aged two, tried to climb inside a book.
> "Unwilling to believe that so wonderful a world [as described
> in the story he had heard read to him) was unreachable, he
> simply opened the tale to his favorite page, carefully ar ranged
> his choice on the floor and stepped in . He tried again and
> again, certain he would soon get it right , and each time he
> was left standing out in the cold he cried in bewilderment ."
> Few of us are as innocent as Michael: we take revenge on the
> authors by refusing to read them , stud y them with calcula·
> tion in order to expose their tricks, or withdraw from mag ic
> trnasport to take refuge in reading what we fondly believe
> are facts, revered because so manipulable. Most newspapers,
> how-to manuals, and interoffice memos have the virtue of be·
> ing written in mind-numbing, heavisome pro e . They have
> designs on our opinions and attitudes, and sometimes on our
> purses and our votes, but they are not usually concerned with
> our interior selves on any profound level. ewspa pers and
> pe riodicals are adored by politicians. Emily Dickinson's
> father, who was a politician, displayed a misplaced kindness
> in indulgently allowing her to read the local newspaper, while
> urging her not to read books-especially the poetry she
> loved-lest they "jostle" her mind. Dickinson herself wa ,of
> course, a great poet although her father appears to have suc·
> cessfull y avoided recognizing this . " Everybody must have
> wished at some time that poetry were written by nice ordi·
> nary people instead of poets-and, in a better world, it may
> be," as Randall Jarrell ruefully observes.
> But the cockroaches of poetry lurk beneath the floorboard
> of even the loftiest mansions of the rational mind. It fell to
> my lot, as Associate Editor of Hansard, the record of the de·
> bates of the Canadian Parliament, to ed it the following sen-
> tences, given here in the pristine form in which they fell from
> the honora ble orators' lips:
> Poetry and Self- Transfonnation        5
> 
> Hon. Member for Grey North: Yes, Mr. Speaker, pessi-
> mism is the scarecrow that fear erects in the watermelon
> patch of the future to frighten away the timid souls so the
> feast may be richer for the few who are not afraid.
> Hon. Member for Niagara Falls: I have thrown the Min-
> ister an orchid, and if you think I am throwing him a bean-
> ball at any time, merely point it out to me, and J will try
> to get the engine back on the track.
> HOll. Member for Halifax: [In Divorce Bill Committee] It
> is extremely difficult to track down adultery and you seize
> upon it if you are lucky enough to find it.
> Hon. Member for Timiskaming: Gossip sometimes cre-
> ates a condition, a condition that would mean a man's rein-
> carnation [sic] in prison. Parolees are not supposed to drink,
> go into public houses or associate with women of easy
> virtues-there are a number of conditions they are asked
> to observe that are not necessarily conducive to rehabili-
> tation.
> HOll. Member for Cartier: It is possible by law to say that
> only those who are born are qualified to serve in Her
> Majesty's Forces.
> An Hon. Member for a Maritime Constituency: It is my
> privilege to represent fi shermen, those brave men who go
> down to the sea in ships and do their business in great
> waters.
> 
> If a capacity to jostle the mind were a characteristic exclu-
> sive to poetry, these utterances might be considered poetry
> of the highest order.
> Baha'IS who write poetry- indeed any Baha'I artists-are
> able to look forward to a different reception from that which
> my friends describe , and this will be increasingly true as the
> Baha'I community expands and matures . Not only do Baha',
> 6     Roger While
> 
> poets have a common world view shared with a community
> towards whose members they have a family feeling, but they
> are also aware of the high regard in which their craft has been
> held since the beginning of the Revelation . Without in any
> way confusing the Creative Word with poetry-one does not
> pun in say ing they are a "kingdom" apart- Baha'i poets
> might rejoice to remember that Nabil records the Bab as say-
> ing that exalted or inspired poetry is the result of "the im-
> mediate influence of the Holy Spirit," and the Bab was heard
> to quote the tradition " Treasures lie hidden beneath the
> throne of God; the key to those treasures is the tongue of
> poets ... • Writers of verse also know that many of the early
> Babis were poets, including Jahirih -at least a stanza from
> one of whose odes we have in the Guardian's own transla-
> tionS They also know that Baha'u'thih Himself wrote poetry;
> that, indeed, ten years before revealing his station to his fol-
> lowers, He alluded to it in Odes·
> 'Abdu'l-Baha, too, wrote poetry of a most exalted and devo-
> tional nature which, admire it though we may, we should
> resist imitating, just as we should resist writing poems in the
> style of the Revealed Word, which does not need our at-
> tempted compliment.
> I am convinced there exists in the Sacred Writings and in
> the recorded talks of 'Abdu 'l-Baha a fou ndation upon which
> will be built a greater system of aesthetics for all the arts than
> the world has yet known, and that time and the patient
> researches of scholars and the creative efforts of artists will
> bring it to light. At this early stage in the development of the
> Baha'i world community, one can only speculate that before
> Baha'i artists can contribute significant advances they must
> dedicate themselves to the restoration and preservation of the
> ideals of beauty and perfection and order . In describing the
> high calling of the artist, David Bosworth hin ts at the inten-
> sity of the creative engagement: " T o bear witness, to be an
> author, to make art, is a profound act; there is no work more
> serious or demanding or fina lly audacious. " 7 Baha'is who
> Poetry and Self- Trans/ormation        7
> 
> write should not be surprised to discover that in addition to
> audacity the task confronting them may require heroism-
> Baha'is in almost everything they do are pioneering in
> one form or another. Kathleen Raine, the British poet and
> critic, laments:
> 
> I have found myself wondering why the present age
> seems positively to shrink from beauty, to prefer the ugly,
> to feel safer, more at home with it; and I have come to real-
> ize that there is a reproach in the beautiful and the perfect;
> it passes its continual silent judgement and it requires
> perhaps a kind of courage to love what is perfect, since to
> do so is an implicit confession of our own imperfection. Can
> it be that the prevalence of the low and the sordid in con-
> temporary writing is a kind of easy way, a form of sloth ,
> an avoidance of that reproach which would call us, silently,
> to [aspire to] a self-perfection it would cost us too much to
> undertake? And yet it is in order to work upon us that
> transformation ... that works which embody the beauti-
> ful alone exist. That is their function . .. 8
> 
> The situation obtaining in t he arts is too well known to re-
> quire comm ent. The Universal House of Justice on 10 Febru-
> ary 1980, in a general letter to Iranian Baha'is "resident in
> other countries throughout the world," did not labor the
> point. After drawing attention to 'Abdu'I-Baha's reference to
> deepening chaos and confusion, the House of Justice stated:
> "Even music, art and literature, which are to represent and
> inspire the noblest sentiments and highest aspirations and
> should be a source of comfort and tranquillity for troubled
> souls . . . are now the mirrors of the soiled hearts of this con-
> fused, unprincipled, and disordered age."
> Unquestionably, Baha'i writers have their work cut out for
> them. Alex Aronson, a respected Shakespearian scholar, ob-
> serving from outside the Baha'i community, has been quick
> to discern that Baha'i authors may playa role in addressing
> 8     Roger While
> 
> themselves to "dimensions of living reality . . . long ago con-
> signed to oblivion" under the weight of "the triviality of our
> everyday experience" and in restoring the "grammar of
> belief. ".
> Language is the meduim of the poet. One has only to turn
> to the words of 'Abdu'I-Baha to discover its purpose:
> " ... the function of language is to portray the mysteries and
> secrets of human hearts. The heart is like a box, and lan-
> guage is the key.'" And since, in The Hiddell Words, Ba-
> ha'u'llah tells us, "Thy heart is My home" (No. 59, Arabic),
> and that "A ll that is in heaven and earth I have ordained for
> thee, except the human heart, which I have made the iUlbitation
> of My beauly and glory . . . " (No. 27, Persian), Baha 'i poets
> will not lack for subject matter and will be challenged to ex-
> cellence of diction. or are they restricted to the solemn and
> devotational, for the heart is the seat also of joy and laugh-
> ter and passion. Baha'i poets might well write of "the inti-
> mate presence of the divine in the lives of men"l. but will not
> confine their appreciation to poetry of that stamp, for they
> will probably recognize with Louis Mac eice, who felt " the
> drunkenness of things being various," that the world is "in-
> corrigibly plural" and "suddener than we fancy it."" Humil-
> ity will inform Baha'f artists that they do not possess truth,
> though they may feel they have glimpsed its wellspring and
> will remain receptive to the poetry of quest. An emergent
> Baha'i community, grown secure, will not, dare I guess, con-
> tent itseU with didactic and exhortative verse but will espouse
> poetry that celebrates an improved quality of life and will
> explore its ceremonial and recreational uses, its capacity to
> delight, inform, and inspire. Yeats pleaded for "the old pas-
> sion felt as new" and declared heroic and religious themes,
> passed down from age to age, modified by individual talent,
> to be the unchanging substance of sublime poetry. Louise
> Bogan noted sadly that the generation of rising young poets
> in America whose work she reviewed wrote unambitious
> poems and were " positively terrified" of the sublime.
> Poetry and Self- Transformation         9
> 
> "It is certain that with the spread of the spirit of Baha'u'llah
> a new era will dawn in art and literature," Shoghi Effendi's
> secretary wrote on his behalf to a Baha'i who had sent him
> a poem. "Whereas before the foml was perfect but the spirit
> was lacking, now there will be a glorious spirit embodied in
> a form immeasurably improved by the quickened genius of
> the world . "12
> It remains for the poets and other artists of today and
> tomorrow to give expression to that spirit. The distinguished
> black poet, Robert Hayden, who was a Baha'i, writing in
> World Order a publication he served as poetry editor, said of
> this process: " The making of a poem, like all other creative
> endeavors, is in the Baha'i view a spiritual act, a form of wor-
> ship," and reminded us of 'Abdu'l-Bah<i's words that, "If a
> man engages with all his power in the acquisition of a science
> or in the perfection of an art, it is as if he has been worship-
> ping God .... What bounty greater than this that science
> should be considered as an act of worship and art as service
> to the Kingdom of God?" 13 Would that not be, human society
> so ordered as to reflect divine ideals and virtues?
> Hayden continued:
> 
> It seems especially significant that 'Abdu'l-Baha makes no
> distinction between "secular" and "religious" art. And we
> may infer from this that poetry, for example, need not be
> limited to religious themes (in the usual sense of the term)
> in order to serve "the Kingdom of God." 'Abdu'l-Baha sees
> the creative act as essentially a religious act. The serious
> artist is involved in a spiritual enterprise. The poet's efforts
> to master form and technique are in themselves a kind of
> prayer.... If there exists a "poetry of despair" and rejec-
> tion, there is also a poetry that affirms the humane and
> spiritual. 14
> 
> It could also be pointed out that ' Abdu'l-Baha makes no dis-
> tinction between women and men writers and artists, nor
> ROBERT HAYDEN (1913-1980)
> a distinguished Baha'i poet.
> Poetry alld &1/- Trans/onltation       11
> 
> does he make any other invidious distinctions. Baha'f writers
> should have no need to write out of anger and frustration oc-
> casioned by discrimination against them on the grounds of
> race or sex; they should have no need to engage in special
> pleading. The Baha'f woman poet will not find it necessary
> to adopt the humiliating and dissembling device of append-
> ing to her work a self-deprecating note like that which ap-
> peared in the first volume of poetry published by an
> Englishwoman, Katherine Philips (1631-1664), a tactic em-
> ployed in various guises by women writers well into the
> nineteenth century because of their vulnerability in a literary
> world dominated by men:
> 
> I am so far from expecting applause for any thi ng I scrib-
> ble that I can hardly expect pardon; and sometimes I think
> that employment so far above my reach and unfit for my
> sex that I am going to resolve against itfor ever. .. . The
> truth is I have an incorrigible inclination to that folly of
> rhyming and intending the effects of that humour only for
> my own amusement in a retired life, I did not so much
> resist it as a wiser woman would have done. IS
> 
> The male writer will not be disconcerted or threatened by
> the news that the earliest poet whose work survives is the
> Sumerian moon priestess, Enheduanna, born circa 2300 BC,
> of whom a detailed likeness has come down to us on a stone
> disc. T o mention that she was the daughter of a king would
> merely serve to underline the pernicious tradition of defin-
> ing women and their achievements as minor subordinate stars
> in relation to the galaxy of great male planets. And the male
> writer might respectfully regard, as an early ancestor-in-craft,
> Anne Brad treet (1612?-1672), the first published poet of the
> New World.
> We should not doubt that the world needs and will accept
> what we fashion with our best effort. Kathleen Raine states
> it well:
> 12        Roger White
> 
> ... people CI ave for the heroic and the beautiful; and when
> they cease to do so ... can our civilization long survive?
> The ugly and the vulgar enable us not to feel, not to think,
> not to live; they save us from the anguish of living. Let us
> admit that our society as a whole has chosen death- death
> in small, painless doses. Fortunes are made by selling it. 16
> 
> She points to the almost universally forgotten use of poetry
> and the other arts to hold up to us a mirror of our own spiri-
> tual and human potential , to strengthen our will to aspire and
> to transform our vision of ourselves. The true work of art,
> Rilke said, addresses humanity saying: You must change
> your life.
> But note that he says you must change it. That is a great
> truth which many of us spend our lives evading. Transfonna-
> tion, we vainly hope, will come from an outside agent- the
> princess will kiss the frog- and it will be painless. But Rilke
> has the support of Baha'u'llah in saying that we must trans-
> form ourselves. He makes it clear that growth and change,
> res~ ue from stasis, are achieved at a cost. In one of his odes
> written in Sulaym<iniyyih, Baha'u'll<ih declares:
> 
> If thine aim be to cherish thy life,
> approach not our court;
> but if sacrifice be thy hearl's desire,
> come and let others come with thee.
> For such is the way of Faith,
> if in thy hearl thou seekest reunion with BaM;
> shouldst tlwu refuse to tread this path,
> why trouble us? Begone!17
> 
> And again, in the afterword to the Hidden Words:
> 
> I bear witness, 0 friends! that the favor is complete. the
> argument fulfilled. the proof manifest and the evidence estab·
> Poetry and Self-Trans/omzation          13
> 
> Ii Iwd_1.21 il now b~ s~n what your endeavors ill the path oj
> detachment will reveal.
> 
> Because I believe in the truth of the statement that change
> must be self-initiated, I have made it the theme of a poem in
> which I hope I have made a legitimate use of irony in depict-
> ing rescue as I think many of us would have it be: effortless,
> dramatic, and imposed by a congenially romantic agent who
> yet tells us, had we ears to hear, that transfOl mation and tran-
> scendence must passionately engage our volition:
> 
> RESCUE
> It cannot continue like this.
> Surely the stranger will come at midnight
> burst into the room on quick light feet
> shake spring rain spangles from his ripe-wheat hair
> the eyes blue opals iridescent with decision
> to draw you from your reading chair
> to say-the words hard-edged, distinct as
> gems on velvet, his voice ascending in excitement-
> You musl change all 0/ this!
> Or next Thursday come
> pensively at twilight
> to sit coiled in silence on the low divan
> then rise with lithe grace
> dark locks luxuriant above the flawless brow
> grave eyes mushy with thought
> to say in slurred excruciating tenderness-
> the tone a dreamer 's-
> Come away, this will not do!
> Or come the Morn of Popinjay
> stride through the sunlit garden
> •
> 
> 14       Roger White
> 
> appear suddenly, filling the doorway,
> a lean column , urgent and ebony-
> his strong white teeth a keyboard of annunciation-
> to clasp your wrist, to say-the voice
> a snapping twig-Look, Y0lt must escape!
> his grasp resolute, compelling,
> the bronzy knuckles deceptively shell-delicate
> come to say-the voice precise,
> huskily constricted- This is the time for risks!
> to say, Listen, there is 110 jonlluia!
> to say, There is a belter way!
> to say, It cannot continue like this!
> ~
> ~
> ~
> '-
> l!
> ,ll
> 
> ROGER WHITE (center)
> Canadian-born author and poet, with Anne Gordon Atkinson (left) and Deborah
> Chicurel Conow (right) who frequently give dramatic readings of his poetry,
>
> — *Poetry and Self-Transformation (Used by permission of the curator)*