When we think of the pleasures of poetry, we rarely turn our thoughts to poise. But poise in the hands of Cavalier poets or Pope was a major virtue. We admire the poise of good hosts or hostesses because they make us feel comfortable, welcomed, and safe. Their poise is revealed most when things go wrong—when guests fall ill, the dinner is undercooked, an unexpected and undesired visitor arrives. It is then that our poised hosts quickly and unostentatiously handle the crisis. Poise is not rigid or static, but rather an adaptive equilibrium, an equilibrium maintained or discovered within circumstances that work against it. Poise has as one of its roots the Old English pois, meaning weight. Poise requires balancing weighty things and in such balance producing grace and lightness. Today, we like to show off the sturm und Drang of artistic creation or of life; we are skeptical of poise. Yet when a poem achieves that balance, I am delighted. I share in its grace, or at least I can imagine possessing such grace. Poise does not settle anything; it is a stance that allows one to be open to the unfolding of experience.
I have in mind as the clearest example of poise Robert Herrick’s “Upon Julia’s Clothes”:
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