Monday, December 30, 2013

I have an instinctive faith...


...in the possibility of readable poems issuing from those who think and talk about poetry. Who think and talk about it as a something akin to the mystery and effect of music. My sense is that such thinking and talking about poetry are necessary though not sufficient criteria for the issuance of readable poems.

My sense of this stuff goes further:
exemplary poems have a way of happening within the paradoxical consciousness of the non-religious mystic.

(I've heard tell that poet Adam Zagajewski is a visiting professor at the University of Houston and the University of Chicago.  It would be swell to listen to him think and talk about poetry.)



4 comments:

  1. I am reading into this a sense of a faith in no faith (religion), which reminds me of the title of a new book that has recently been released by a writer who may or may not be of your acquaintance: http://www.amazon.com/Faith-All-Lahab-Assef-Al-Jundi/dp/1937302148/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1388090811&sr=1-1&keywords=no+faith+at+all

    Perhaps what you are describing is not so much "faith" as it is a depth of experience.

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    1. I used the word "faith" in a loose and probably wrong manner. I suppose I meant something more like confidence. (Perhaps the latter word, with its internal "fide" could be associated with the word "faith.")

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  2. But

    "exemplary poems have a way of happening within the paradoxical consciousness of the non-religious mystic"

    sounds better.

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