operate, for the most part, below the radar – under the control of the so-called autonomic nervous system. The conscious part of the brain and nervous system lets us know when (and exactly how) to move our hand in order, say, to turn the pages of this book. But the unconscious workings of the nervous system are far more covert. We use two different groups of nerve fibres to manage our unconscious processes: ‘parasympathetic’ nerves deal with our everyday bodily functions – things like urination and digestion. By contrast, the ‘sympathetic’ nerves, activated by a chemical called adrenalin, fire up when we are under pressure and stress. This is the so-called ‘fight or flight’ response. Sometimes our ‘sympathetic’ nerve fibres go into overdrive, and we produce too much adrenalin for our own good. We end up on feeling on high alert – on our way to a big meeting or to a job interview, or, in some cases, just at the thought of leaving the house in the morning. We’re left with a racing heart, sweaty palms and shaking limbs (symptoms that are useful only when, for example, you’re being chased by a lion). It’s a vicious cycle. The body makes us feel anxious, and the anxiety makes the physical symptoms worse. Doctors sometimes prescribe drugs, called beta-blockers, that stop the adrenalin from producing these symptoms.
Engaging with the initial feel of a poem on the page – its tempo, rhythm and cadences (its musicality) – then with the images it creates in the mind, and finally with its sense and possible meanings can help restore the balance of the parasympathetic and sympathetic fibres. The ‘fight or flight’ adrenalin rush of the sympathetic nervous system starts to melt away, and gradually, as our breathing slows and as our racing pulse subsides, the less stressed and anxious we feel. A sense of calm can follow. Repetition (in a poem, and with repeated readings of a poem) brings with it a sense of familiarity, and is a step towards learning it off by heart. With a little time and effort, a poem can exist in its entirety in the brain of the reader, to be recalled at whatever moment it’s most needed. A beta-blocker for the soul.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
Adlestrop
Yes. I remember Adlestrop –
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
Edward Thomas
Five Senses
Now my five senses
gather into a meaning
all acts, all presences;
and as a lily gathers
the elements together,
in me this dark and shining,
that stillness and that moving,
these shapes that spring from nothing,
become a rhythm that dances,
a pure design.
While I’m in my five senses
they send me spinning
all sounds and silences,
all shape and colour
as thread for that weaver,
whose web within me growing
follows beyond my knowing
some pattern sprung from nothing –
a rhythm that dances
and is not mine.
Judith Wright
The Small Window
In Wales there are jewels
To gather, but with the eye
Only. A hill lights up
Suddenly; a field trembles
With colour and goes out
In its turn; in one day
You can witness the extent
Of the spectrum and grow rich
With looking. Have a care;
This wealth is for the few
And chosen. Those who crowd
A small window dirty it
With their breathing, though sublime
And inexhaustible the view.
R. S. Thomas
Red Wheelbarrow
