The Holy Life of the Intellect


Canadian poet George Bowering says we experience the mind of another person when we enjoy poetry, jazz or love. He believes this vision of human intellect is the closest thing we have to the divine.


Welcome to This I Believe, an NPR series presenting the personal philosophies of remarkable men and women from all walks of life.

From NPR News, this is weekend edition. I m Rean Hanson.

I believe in mystery. I believe in family. I believe in being who I am. I believe in the power of failure. And I believe normal life is extraordinary.

This I Believe.

Our revival of Edwood R. Murrow's series This I Believe has recently been adopted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. From time to time we exchange essays with the CBC, and today's comes from that collaboration. Here is series curator, independent producer Jay Alison.

In the 1950s Edwood R. Murrow and his team turned to poets like Carl Sandburg and many others for inspiration. George Bowering, Canada's first poet laureate and the author of over 80 books finds his inspiration too in the art and poetry of others. Here is George Bowering with his essay for This I Believe.

I believe that the human intellect is the closest thing we have to the divine. It is the way we can join one and other in spirit. Sometimes when you are listening to a great jazz musician performing a long solo, you are experiencing his mind, moment by moment, as it shifts and decides, as it adds and reminds. This happens whether the player is a saxophone player or a bass player or a pianist. You are in there where that other mind is. His mind is coming through your ears and inside your mind.

The first time I heard Charlie Parker playing Ornithology, I was delighted. I was about 11 years old. You are so much alone with your mind as a kid. So when you hear someone else s mind improvising, you feel an excitement you will never get from some music that just wants to keep a steady beat. I got that delight again when I first heard great improvisatory poetry. When I read the desert music by William Carlos Williams, the book fell out of my hands and made a loud splat on the library's concrete floor. Later I would hear the poet Philip Ryland called this kind of poetry a graph of the mind moving. Yes, it is. It can happen with prose too. Sentences you hear in your head and know how they felt inside anothers'. I believe that if there is a God, this is what he wanted us to do. It is the holy life of the intellect. If we can experience another's mind in our own we know that love is possible.

We understand why the great poet Shelley wrote a poem to what he called Intellectual Beauty and called it an invisible power that moves among the things and people of this earth. It descended on him when he was a youth looking for wisdom from the words of the dead.

Intelligence literally means choosing among. Shelly called it the spirit of delight. It is the gift of wit which literally means the kind of seeing that makes she smile and clap her hands together. I believe that this provokes what the Greeks called '“ΑΓΑΠΗ” (AGAPI), the Romans called 'kaditas' and what we settle for as love. It s greater than hope and faith according to St. Paul of Tarsus in an otherwise questionable letter to the Corinthians.

If you want to hear it happen rather than suffer any more of my apostolic prose, listen to the improvisation by John Coltrane in his immortal album called A Love Supreme. There we are, a fine intellect, a tender saxophone and a reach for a perfect prayer.

Canadian poet George Bowering with his essay for This I Believe. To read essays from other poets and writers from the 1950s and from our contemporary series, visit our website at npr. org, or you will also find information on submitting your own essay. For This I Believe, I m Jay Alison.

Next Monday on NPR s All Things Considered, listener Lora Shipla Chico contributes to This I Believe essay. She will tell us three qualities she wants her unborn child to have. This I Believe is independently produced by Jay Alison, Dan Gediman, John Gregory, and Vfiki Merric.

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This I Believe is produced for NPR by This I Believe Incorporated at Atlantic Public Media. For more essays in the series, please visit NPR. org/thisibelieve.