A Poetics (69- 75)
69. Ouroboros
The poem does not exist in space or on the page but in the mind, first as created by the poet and second as perceived by the reader, but the poet and the reader are always one. The reader cannot exist without the poet, because the poet creates that text that makes reading possible. And the poet cannot exist without the reader because unless the poem is read by someone it does not exist at all. The poet and the reader are forever trapped in a circle and eating each other, yet never quite able to devour each other out of existence.
70. Rule
The first rule of poetry—and this is a rule for poets, one to help poets understand the world of reading—is
Nobody ever sees what it is you've put inside the poem.
71. Message
To destroy a poem, all a poet need do is focus on the message of the poem and ensure its successful transmission. A poem is an experience of language. What it is about besides language is of secondary importance. If the verbal experience fails, the poem has failed, despite any deep thinking or high ideas left within the poem.
72. Finding
For the poet, the poem must be a discovery, not a destination.
73. Doing
A poem isn't about anything. It is a process of being. In itself, it is what it is. It becomes about something only by the secondary process of understanding it. The primary contact with a poem is experiencing it.
74. Context
A word exists in context, actually in contexts which are syntactic, but also social, historical, and spatial. A word exists and functions in the context of a sentence, which is in the context of a strophe or stanza, which is in the context of a poem, which is in the context of a book, which is in the context of an oeuvre, which is in the context of a tradition, which is in the context of a culture, writ broad and large. A word may me something (or some things) in a sentence, but something different with a particular friend, and something different within the history of a family, and something different merely because of how closely it rests beside another word on a page. Words are complex and ever-changing, and that is their allure; they are the rainbow's colors melted into the iridescent water on the side of a road.
75. Sometimes
I repeat myself to clarify to myself what I mean. In that way, I am a poem, or poetic, though not quite poetry.
ecr. l'inf.
The poem does not exist in space or on the page but in the mind, first as created by the poet and second as perceived by the reader, but the poet and the reader are always one. The reader cannot exist without the poet, because the poet creates that text that makes reading possible. And the poet cannot exist without the reader because unless the poem is read by someone it does not exist at all. The poet and the reader are forever trapped in a circle and eating each other, yet never quite able to devour each other out of existence.
70. Rule
The first rule of poetry—and this is a rule for poets, one to help poets understand the world of reading—is
Nobody ever sees what it is you've put inside the poem.
71. Message
To destroy a poem, all a poet need do is focus on the message of the poem and ensure its successful transmission. A poem is an experience of language. What it is about besides language is of secondary importance. If the verbal experience fails, the poem has failed, despite any deep thinking or high ideas left within the poem.
72. Finding
For the poet, the poem must be a discovery, not a destination.
73. Doing
A poem isn't about anything. It is a process of being. In itself, it is what it is. It becomes about something only by the secondary process of understanding it. The primary contact with a poem is experiencing it.
74. Context
A word exists in context, actually in contexts which are syntactic, but also social, historical, and spatial. A word exists and functions in the context of a sentence, which is in the context of a strophe or stanza, which is in the context of a poem, which is in the context of a book, which is in the context of an oeuvre, which is in the context of a tradition, which is in the context of a culture, writ broad and large. A word may me something (or some things) in a sentence, but something different with a particular friend, and something different within the history of a family, and something different merely because of how closely it rests beside another word on a page. Words are complex and ever-changing, and that is their allure; they are the rainbow's colors melted into the iridescent water on the side of a road.
75. Sometimes
I repeat myself to clarify to myself what I mean. In that way, I am a poem, or poetic, though not quite poetry.
ecr. l'inf.
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