I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance

Hear, O children of words and silence, the sharp yet noble voice of Anthony Hope, who declared: “I wish you would read a little poetry sometimes. Your ignorance cramps my conversation.” It is a rebuke, but also a lament. For here is a man who knows that without the nourishment of poetry, the soul grows narrow, the mind grows dull, and conversation—once a fire of thought—becomes but ashes. In his words, there is both impatience and longing: impatience for shallowness, longing for depth.

For what is poetry but the widening of the heart, the sharpening of the mind, the deepening of human understanding? To speak with one who has not read it is to speak with one who sees the world in flat lines rather than in dimensions. They may describe a fact, but not its spirit; they may recount an event, but not its meaning. Thus, Hope cries that such ignorance cramps his conversation, for to converse without poetry is like sailing without wind—motionless, without freedom, without the joy of movement.

The ancients knew this truth. In Greece, the men of Athens were not deemed educated until they had learned the epics of Homer, for poetry was not mere entertainment, but the wellspring of imagination and virtue. In China, the scholar was incomplete without knowledge of the Book of Songs, for poetry was the key to wisdom and governance. Even in Rome, Cicero confessed that without the poets, statesmen themselves would lack eloquence and vision. To live without poetry was to live only half a life.

History gives us vivid witness. Consider Abraham Lincoln, who in the darkest nights of the Civil War found solace in Shakespeare’s tragedies and the King James Bible’s soaring lines. It was poetry that gave shape to his grief, power to his speeches, and consolation to his soul. Without such nourishment, his words at Gettysburg or his Second Inaugural might have been plain record-keeping. But because he drank from poetry’s well, his words became immortal, carrying not just information, but flame.

Anthony Hope himself, though best remembered for The Prisoner of Zenda, was a man who understood the need for imagination, metaphor, and story. His frustration in this quote is the frustration of every soul who lives richly in words, only to find their companions unable to follow. When he says “ignorance cramps my conversation,” he is not speaking of arrogance, but of the suffocating weight that falls upon the spirit when one longs to soar yet must crawl because another’s mind has never been taught to fly.

O listeners, let this be a lesson: do not neglect poetry. It is not an ornament of culture, but a necessity of the soul. To read poetry is to expand one’s thought, to train one’s speech, to sharpen one’s listening. It enables us to see through another’s eyes, to feel through another’s heart, to speak with grace and depth. Without it, conversation is reduced to trade and triviality; with it, even common speech becomes luminous.

Practical is this wisdom: set aside time to read a verse each day. Begin not with difficulty but with delight—Rumi’s mystic lines, Shakespeare’s sonnets, Emily Dickinson’s sparks of brevity. Reflect on them, speak of them, let them color your language. And when you converse with others, share what you have learned—not to boast, but to lift the talk from earth to sky. In this way, your words will gain wings, and your mind will never be cramped by ignorance.

Thus, let Anthony Hope’s words endure: the absence of poetry is not merely a lack of knowledge, but a poverty of spirit. But to embrace poetry is to enlarge the world within, to enrich every conversation, and to ensure that one’s voice, like a well-played instrument, resonates with music that others may carry long after the speaking is done.