Ars Poetica

Welcome Back Time Travellers,

Today we will discuss Ars Poetica, which means "on the nature of poetry" or "the art of poetry" in Latin. An Ars Poetica is traditionally a poem about poetry. These tend to be a poet's manifesto on their craft. I avoid these normally because they scare the dickens out of me. The Charles Dickens. Who am I to discuss the very nature and fabric of poetry?

However, last night I was at dinner with the Abels and we began to discuss the very nature of poetry. What is poetry? What is prose? How is beautiful prose different from poetry? Why is poetry so difficult and yet so appealing?

I hope to vainly and futilely answer these questions today. This is a dark and mysterious question. One might as well ask me what holy is? What is sacred? This is a question for each soul to light incense, go through the dark silver veil, and seek out for themselves what monster awaits them in the depths of the cave of this question. Is it a beast or a bride? A prince or a taskmaster?

I will answer through poems. Poems I agree with and poems I disagree with. Poems that put forth the question as a gentle musing and poems that demand the question with a pedantic brooding. I know he has a message and a meaning, but remember to feel first if you dare. Feel First.

Dedication
BY CZESLAW MILOSZ

You whom I could not save
Listen to me.  
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.  
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.  
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.

What strengthened me, for you was lethal.  
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,  
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty;  
Blind force with accomplished shape.

Here is a valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge  
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city;  
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave  
When I am talking with you.

What is poetry which does not save  
Nations or people?  
A connivance with official lies,  
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,  
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,  
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,  
In this and only this I find salvation.

They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds  
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.  
I put this book here for you, who once lived  
So that you should visit us no more.


The fourth stanza almost moves me to tears. "What is poetry which does not save nations or people?" So so true. He is far less preachy and also abstract. He is pondering pondering poetry. Meta-pondering.

Ars Poetica
BY ARCHIBALD MACLEISH

A poem should be palpable and mute  
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless  
As the flight of birds.

                         *              

A poem should be motionless in time  
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,  
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time  
As the moon climbs.

                         *              

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean  
But be.

Oh Archibald, one of my founding fathers of Feel First and a very fine Scottish poet. I deeply love this poem. The line that catches my breath is "a poem should be equal to: not true." I'll allow my philosophy friends to work with this semantic paradox and find that it captures art and poetry very well. This is a beautiful passage if every there was one. 

This is just a window. You can search and search more for an understanding of poetry. Look for more Ars Poetica. All of these lessons have been my Ars Poetica but I encourage you to seek others. 

Good Night and Good Luck, 

Rory