It’s not much practised, but there’s a strong tradition of how-to poems, from Virgil to Henry Reed. So this month it’s your turn to teach
The question of what poetry is for is one that has as many answers as it has people who try to answer it. For Ezra Pound, following the teachers of medieval oratory, the answer was ut moveat, ut doceat, ut delectate; that poetry should move, teach and delight. Most contemporary readers would probably have no issue with the first and third of these precepts, but the didactic use of poetry went somewhat out of fashion with the Romantic movement and is still not much valued by many readers.
Nevertheless, a genre of “how to” poems does exist, and poems of instruction – more or less literal – continue to be written. This didactic tradition dates back at least as far as Hesiod’s farming manual Works and Days, with its emphasis on the value of hard work. For Hesiod, labour is both inevitable and ethically desirable, being humanity’s greatest safeguard against unnecessary strife. The poem was a major influence on Virgil’s The Georgics, which similarly emphasises the importance of hard work. Indeed, Virgil goes so far as to suggest farming as a suitable employment for retired Roman soldiers, perhaps picking up on the earlier poet’s concern with containing violence through physical labour.
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