If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the

“If you go into a bar in most places in America and even say the word poetry, you'll probably get beaten up. But poetry is a really strong, beautiful form to me, and a lot of innovation in language comes from poetry.” So speaks Jim Jarmusch, the filmmaker who walks between the realms of the ordinary and the dreamlike. His words echo the tension between a world that scorns the delicate and a truth that proclaims the delicate as a source of strength. It is an ancient conflict: the crowd mocks what it does not understand, and the wise man defends what cannot be destroyed.

The meaning of this saying rests on two pillars: first, the disdain that society often shows toward the subtle power of art, and second, the unyielding truth that poetry—despite mockery, despite rejection—remains a fountain of strength and renewal. In the barrooms of the world, men may raise fists against the word poetry, seeing it as weakness. Yet in the chambers of history, it is poetry that has carried the memory of nations, the grief of widows, the courage of warriors, and the secret of lovers. Mocked in the moment, revered in eternity.

Let us remember the tale of Wilfred Owen, the soldier-poet of the Great War. In the trenches of France, amidst mud and fire, he wrote verses that revealed the truth of horror and the dignity of the fallen. Soldiers beside him might have laughed at a man writing lines instead of brandishing bayonets—but today, Owen’s poems endure, while the mockers’ names are lost to dust. This is Jarmusch’s teaching: poetry is not weakness, but the enduring flame that keeps truth alive when swords are broken and cities are ash.

The origin of this sentiment lies in a culture that often prizes the practical, the rugged, and the unadorned above all else. In America especially, where barroom bravado and frontier toughness shape identity, the word poetry may seem out of place. Yet Jarmusch insists on its necessity, reminding us that innovation in language—the very lifeblood of storytelling, culture, and even cinema—springs from the daring experiments of poets. The new ways of seeing, the new ways of speaking, they all begin in the forge of verse.

Here, too, is a paradox: society yearns for progress, for innovation, for words that stir the soul, yet scorns the very soil from which these things arise. It is like a man who curses the well from which he drinks, not knowing that without its waters he will perish. The poet is often exiled, yet his exile becomes the seedbed of transformation. From Homer to Whitman, from Sappho to Ginsberg, the world has been reshaped by the words once thought fragile, strange, or dangerous.

The lesson is clear: do not be ashamed of beauty in a world that scorns it. To love poetry, or art, or any form of gentle creation, is not weakness—it is courage. For it is easy to join the chorus of laughter in the bar, but it is harder to stand alone, holding fast to that which is unseen yet eternal. Those who endure this mockery, as Jarmusch does, align themselves with the lineage of all creators who refused to bow to the ignorance of the crowd.

To you who hear these words: embrace poetry in whatever form it comes to you. Read it aloud, write it in secret, carry it in your heart. Let it shape your language, for in your language lies your power to shape the world. When others scoff, remember that their scoffing is a passing sound, but your words, if born of truth, may ripple through generations. Do not fear the blows of the ignorant; fear instead the silence of a soul that never dares to sing.

And so let the teaching stand: though you may be laughed at, mocked, or even struck down for speaking the language of beauty, hold fast. For as rivers cut through stone and stars endure through night, so too will poetry carve its way into the marrow of the world. The bar may jeer, but the future will remember the poet.