Friday, September 13, 2013

poetry and whatever that other stuff is


Occasionally (or rarely), one comes across poems in which experience and phenomena are transformed through language into an extraordinary condition or state. In such cases, language is used to perform a kind of spiritual-artistic magic.

Usually (or mostly), one comes across poems in which experience and phenomena are pathologized through ego into something barely readable, in which language is merely a clanky utilitarian Jeep carrying the poet across a dismal landscape of his self-absorption and self-fascination. In such cases, the reader begins to wonder: why should I care about this boring personal junk the poet is blathering about in such a prosaic manner? The reader, gradually losing patience, wonders further: why isn't the poet looking out at the world through language as sorcery and art?


1 comment:

  1. "It is the rumble and rasping of the inert things that provokes the vocalization of the animals; fish hum with the streams and birds chatter in the crackling of the windy forest. To live is to echo the vibrancy of things. To be, for material things, is to resonate." --Alfonso Lingis

    "I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I wanted to be a poem."
    — Jaime Gil de Biedma

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