Literature, Poetry and The Media

Literature is the eloquent language of a nation’s spiritual make-up world of ideas and culture. Those who do not share this “language” cannot understand each other even if they belong to the same nation.

Words are one of the best means to transfer ideas to others. Those who are able to use this means in the best way possible can quickly find many representatives of the thoughts they planted in others and so attain immortality through their ideas. Those who cannot do so die without a trace along with the mental pain they suffered while alive.

With the material it uses and its particular way of expression each type of literature is a unique language. Even if everyone understands something of this language only poets and writers use and speak it with its real meaning.

Just as dealers of gold and silver understand gold and silver only dealers in words understand literary jewels. An animal will eat a flower on the ground and those inappreciative of it will step on it and go on their way. Only one who is truly human will smell it and place it in his or her lapel or hair.

High thoughts and elevated subjects must be explained with a style to penetrate minds excite hearts and receive acceptance from spirits. If not those who keep the letter of words only will see the torn and miserable “clothing” put on the meaning and thus will not seek the inner jewels.

Meaning is the essential element in literature. Thus words should be kept to a minimum while being rich and full in meaning. Some people tend to explain their thoughts with similes metaphors allusions allusive metaphors and puns. However the most meaningful word is to be sought in exuberant inspired spirits profound imaginations that embrace all existence and believing analyzing and synthesizing minds able to attain the vision of this world and the Hereafter as two faces of one truth.

Poetry is the poetic expression of the universe’s hidden beauty and symmetry and the heart-ravishing smiling view of existence by sensitive inspired souls. Among them are those whose hearts have become ink-pots and whose ink is the breath of the Holy Spirit.

Poetry is the sound heard while delving into the beyond and the moan coming from those so engaged. Its sounds and tunes are sometimes uproarious and sometimes fine for they depend on the poet’s spiritual condition and inner depth. For this reason poetry’s every word and sound can be comprehended fully only if the hearer knows the poet’s spiritual state at the time of his or her poem’s conception.

Poetry is born and takes shape according to the belief culture and style of thought affecting the poet’s view and sensitivity. Only inspiration deepens it and causes it to transcend consciousness. In a heart that is exuberant with inspiration an atom becomes a sun and a drop becomes an ocean.

Regardless of how great the role of intelligence and thought is in poetry the human heart has a deep direction of its own. In Fuzûlî’s words: “My word is the carrier of standard before the army of poets.” When thoughts growing in the heart put on the wings of imagination they begin to force the doors of infinity.

Poetry like entreaty expresses the ups and downs as well as the enthusiasm and sadness of the individual’s inner world. To the extent the poet concentrates on exalted truths the resulting poems become like breaths from beyond. Every supplication is a poem and every poem is a supplication provided the poem flutters wings toward infinity.

A poem that grows in the thought of infinity and flies in the skies of pure thought with the heart’s wings and the spirit’s strength does not pay too much attention to positive thought. It uses the material, concrete world only as a vehicle. It aims only to find and catch the abstract.

Poetry is far more than rhymed speech for many phrases that are not metrical attract the spirit and awaken wonder and amazement in the heart with their meaning and way of expression. Each is a monument of poetry in itself.

Like every branch of art, poetry that has no connection with the infinite is barren and dim. The human spirit fascinated with infinite beauty the human heart obsessed with infinity and the human conscience longing for the eternal and eternity plead with artists to delve into the beyond. An artist who resists this plea spends a lifetime imitating the external face of things, but is never able to see beyond this curtain of lace.

A poem that considers form and meaning in the relationship resembling that between the spirit and body without sacrificing one to the other will attain a harmony that everyone will like and find natural. Even the imagination will be unable to suggest a new motif for such a poem. The media enlightens people and voices their sentiments and ideas. Under the oppressive rule it is either a prisoner or a flatterer.

Every writer should be well-mannered in words and behavior refined in language and writing. Otherwise much damage can be done for the sake of an illusory good. Journalists and writers who do not write according to national sentiment and thought represent Babylonian enslavement.

The media should avoid serving individual fancies for their main purpose is to enlighten the nation. Many cranial bones now decaying in graveyards contain books that could not be written because of oppression or censorship.

M. Fethullah Gulen

İs thinker, author, poet, opinion leader and one of the most influential scholars in the World today. His ideas have inspired millions to take part in a muvement of intercultural and interfaith dialogue and educational activism, which produced hundreds of quality schools and dialogue organizations in more then 120 countries. Originating in Turkey but becoming increasingly transnational, the Gulen movement has represented novel approaches to the synthesis of faith reason, eucation, spirituality, an peaceful co-existence in the divirse societies.

For further reading and information:  www.guleninstitute.org  www.gyv.org.tr  www.rumiforum.org . www.fgulen.com