What is poetry? Emily Dickinson answered, in a letter: If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?
This is great, Kieran. I especially appreciated the idea that "Poetry elicits, and works with, absence or omission." This feels very true to my experience. And this: "The missingness of poetry slows readers down, making them search for what can’t be found. The encounter is almost inherently frustrating, as though one could not possibly pay enough attention." The paying attention part seems crucial, as poetry elicits (and maybe highlights) the quest or longing that seems very central to what is most true about being human—that sense that there is always more than we can know. It makes me think of the end of the play "Our Town," realizing life as we live it, which the saints and poets do some.
I too like this defintion of poetry as a vehicle of absence. I wonder if this absence functions, semantically, to breathe vagueness and ambiguity into the intermittent words.
I tend to think of poetry and prose on a continuum. As we move to the poetic end of that continuum, we pay more attention to the music of our words, and allow in multivalency and free associative connotations. toward the prose side, we prioritize clear unambiguous expression.
Really must go back to İris M's lovely book (incidentally, the poets are also criticized in the Qur'an for their "wandering thoughts"). Vaguely recall the ancient quarrel was also about pleasure being separated from the truth (in the way we are mesmerized by beauty, words). Can there be a 'good Entertainment' (Byung Chul Han)?
Didn't quite get the point about the open-endedness of the world. İs it 'the world' or reality/Truth that is open-ended? Btw, Kieran, Merton has some very interesting reflections on poetry (well, from what I gathered from Michael Centore's article on him in the Clarion Review, that is).
Sorry, forgot to say: if you have the time this really is outstanding. Seriously good:
Somewhere in my teens I first encountered the word “ineffable”. It pointed to something sublime, something true. Something I felt I could believe in that would help me know something important about the world and the way and where of how I stand in the world. What enchanted me was that whatever this was, its essence was that it could not be described with words. And that gave me an inkling of what poetry was. The translation of the ineffable. Doomed to failure, by definition. “Poetry” considered in this light, is abstracted from form. “Poems” are those word objects where the intent is for the poetry content to reign supreme, the translation project is the entire point of this particular art object made of words. Other forms – novels, essays, journalism, songs, short stories, blog posts, tweets (hmm... must we call the Xs now?) – all have something else they’re trying to express. To the extent that they can incorporate poetry they’ll be more compelling, more satisfying. Is there anything that more exemplifies the beautiful courageous foolishness of human beings than our compulsion towards poetry? To use nothing but words to put ourselves in touch with the sublime truths that cannot be expressed in words?
This is great, Kieran. I especially appreciated the idea that "Poetry elicits, and works with, absence or omission." This feels very true to my experience. And this: "The missingness of poetry slows readers down, making them search for what can’t be found. The encounter is almost inherently frustrating, as though one could not possibly pay enough attention." The paying attention part seems crucial, as poetry elicits (and maybe highlights) the quest or longing that seems very central to what is most true about being human—that sense that there is always more than we can know. It makes me think of the end of the play "Our Town," realizing life as we live it, which the saints and poets do some.
I too like this defintion of poetry as a vehicle of absence. I wonder if this absence functions, semantically, to breathe vagueness and ambiguity into the intermittent words.
I tend to think of poetry and prose on a continuum. As we move to the poetic end of that continuum, we pay more attention to the music of our words, and allow in multivalency and free associative connotations. toward the prose side, we prioritize clear unambiguous expression.
Really must go back to İris M's lovely book (incidentally, the poets are also criticized in the Qur'an for their "wandering thoughts"). Vaguely recall the ancient quarrel was also about pleasure being separated from the truth (in the way we are mesmerized by beauty, words). Can there be a 'good Entertainment' (Byung Chul Han)?
Didn't quite get the point about the open-endedness of the world. İs it 'the world' or reality/Truth that is open-ended? Btw, Kieran, Merton has some very interesting reflections on poetry (well, from what I gathered from Michael Centore's article on him in the Clarion Review, that is).
Sorry, forgot to say: if you have the time this really is outstanding. Seriously good:
https://tinhouse.com/podcast/jorie-graham-runaway/
Somewhere in my teens I first encountered the word “ineffable”. It pointed to something sublime, something true. Something I felt I could believe in that would help me know something important about the world and the way and where of how I stand in the world. What enchanted me was that whatever this was, its essence was that it could not be described with words. And that gave me an inkling of what poetry was. The translation of the ineffable. Doomed to failure, by definition. “Poetry” considered in this light, is abstracted from form. “Poems” are those word objects where the intent is for the poetry content to reign supreme, the translation project is the entire point of this particular art object made of words. Other forms – novels, essays, journalism, songs, short stories, blog posts, tweets (hmm... must we call the Xs now?) – all have something else they’re trying to express. To the extent that they can incorporate poetry they’ll be more compelling, more satisfying. Is there anything that more exemplifies the beautiful courageous foolishness of human beings than our compulsion towards poetry? To use nothing but words to put ourselves in touch with the sublime truths that cannot be expressed in words?