Beautiful Language

I have spent far too much time lately thinking about how much language and grammar usage is ridiculous, and I have been getting discouraged to even want to teach English, and then I realized something important. I love language. I want to teach to help kids first, but I really love English specifically because I love beautiful language. I am not talking about the academic pretentious language, which is implored by far too many people that I know, I am talking about the imagery and emotion that words can give. Because I have been so stressed out lately with the events of life, I of course turn to music and have been listening to a new album by the band Bon Iver. The music alone evokes such a strong emotion in me, but what really catches me is Bon Iver’s imagery in his lyrics. He, (Justin Vernon who is Bon Iver) writes songs about emotions that everyone has. The lyrics are simple and beautiful and true, just like poetry I want to teach someday. And, as I got listening to the songs it hit me that the emotions being sung about were emotions of anguish and pain. Some of the songs spread a general felicity but the songs about deep and sad emotions affected me the most.  There was a lyric, “I was not magnificent.” The lyric with the music was so powerful.  But the words on their own, for whatever reason really hit me. They are so almost morbidly beautiful. I got thinking about a certain correlation with beautifulness relating to inner emotions and language as a means for snapshoting said emotion. In another song he sings, “Pincher with the skin inside. You pinned me with your black sphere eyes. You know that all the ropes sometimes. I was only for to die beside.” Why do these images and emotions hit so hard? I think there is a definite correlation between our own emotions, the music we listen to, and how we process emotion. In essence scenes that we connect with are scenes that we can’t articulate ourselves. I am not depressed or anything, I just enjoy a darker side of emotion with a beautiful tone through beautiful images. I find Bon Iver’s music appealing because his language tells a story and makes me consider my own life and my own emotions - Something I want my students to do someday.