Potry-Poetry-Poetry????

The Iranian poet, Reza Baraheni says that "Perhaps one could say that poetry is the most obscure thing that ever existed."

Let us reflect on the obscure nature of poetry in modern times. I would like to start with a personal experience. A few days back I had to apply for a tourist visa to Europe. I filled out the visa form in this manner; Profession - poet, and Reason for Travel- poetry reading. The girl at the visa counter looked puzzled; maybe she couldn't think of writing poetry as a profession. In the present day world, poetry has become just a part time hobby. One has to be teacher, doctor or something else before being a poet. Those days are gone when the job of a poet was a highly regarded one, and poets commanded respect in society. Today, a person can be a full time player, dancer, artist or politician, but cannot be a full time poet.

Every other branch of art seems to be lucrative, a painter for instance can sell his paintings for a substantial amount of money, but poetry cannot feed a poet. It burns away the poet's heart, and takes away his/her money.

Coming to Reza Baraheni's statement, I don't think that he means this when he says that poetry is the most obscure thing that ever existed. Maybe he was pointing a finger at both the ambiguity that exists in poems and the fact that poetry and the profession of the poet is more or less incomprehensible to many

Maryam Ala Amjadi, a young Irani poet tells us about the cruelty against poetry in her article on Persian poetry. She says that the revolutionary lips of the poet, Farrokhi Yazdi (1887-1939) were sewed together with needle and thread by the order of the governor of Yazd and yet, the inhumanity of this act did not stop him from keeping his pen in constant motion. Does this act explain the obscurity of poetry?