Ars Poetica?
I have always aspired to a more spacious form
That would be free from the claims of poetry or prose
And would let us understand each other without exposing
The author or reader to sublime agonies.
In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent:
A thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us,
So we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out
And stood in the light, lashing his tail.
That’s why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion,
Though its an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel.
It’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from,
When so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty.
What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons,
Who behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues,
And who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand,
Work at changing his destiny for their convenience?
It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today,
And so you may think that I am only joking
Or that I’ve devised just one more means
Of praising Art with thehelp of irony.
There was a time when only wise books were read
Helping us to bear our pain and misery.
This, after all, is not quite the same
As leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics.
And yet the world is different from what it seems to be
And we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings.
People therefore preserve silent integrity
Thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors.
The purpose of poetry is to remind us
How difficult it is to remain just one person,
For our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
And invisible guests come in and out at will.
What I’m saying here is not, I agree, poetry,
As poems should be written rarely and reluctantly,
Under unbearable duress and only with the hope
That good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.
Related poetry:
- Preamble (A Rough Draft For An Ars Poetica) …Preamble A rough draft For an ars poetica . . . . . . . Let’s get our dreams unstuck The grain of rye Free from the prattle of grass Et loin de arbres orateurs I Plant It It will sprout But forget about The rustic festivities For the explosive word Falls harmlessly Eternal through […]...
- Ars Poetica 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 […]...
- Psalm I: The Man Is Ever Blessed The man is ever bless’d Who shuns the sinners’ ways, Among their councils never stands, Nor takes the scorner’s place; But makes the law of God His study and delight, Amidst the labours of the day, And watches of the night. He like a tree shall thrive, With waters near the root; Fresh as the […]...
- My Garden The world is sadly sick, they say, And plagued by woe and pain. But look! How looms my garden gay, With blooms in golden reign! With lyric music in the air, Of joy fulfilled in song, I can’t believe that anywhere Is hate and harm and wrong. A paradise my garden is, And there my […]...
- On My First Son Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy. Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. Oh, could I lose all father now! For why Will man lament the state he should envy? […]...
- Senses Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight. Thou ever pourest for me the fresh draught of thy wine of various Colours and fragrance, filling this earthen vessel to the brim. My world will light its hundred different lamps with thy flame And place […]...
- To an Ungentle Critic The great sun sinks behind the town Through a red mist of Volnay wine…. But what’s the use of setting down That glorious blaze behind the town? You’ll only skip the page, you’ll look For newer pictures in this book; You’ve read of sunsets rich as mine. A fresh wind fills the evening air With […]...
- Poetry And Religion Religions are poems. They concert Our daylight and dreaming mind, our Emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture Into the only whole thinking: poetry. Nothing’s said till it’s dreamed out in words And nothing’s true that figures in words only. A poem, compared with an arrayed religion, May be like a soldier’s one short marriage night […]...
- WYTHER PARK SCHOOL LEEDS FIVE I stood there in front of forty-five faces The first day of term, not especially fancying “Exercises in Mechanical Arithmetic” and so instead I read a poem from Kirkup in Japan, about Nijinsky, Hand-written on a fan of rice-paper. Thirty years later, taking a Sri Lankan girl In search of her first job around London […]...
- Dream On Some people go their whole lives Without ever writing a single poem. Extraordinary people who don’t hesitate To cut somebody’s heart or skull open. They go to baseball games with the greatest of ease. And play a few rounds of golf as if it were nothing. These same people stroll into a church As if […]...
- Will There Be Starlight Will there be starlight Tonight While she gathers Damask And lilac And sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, Or will she find thorns Guarding the petals Of roses unborn? Will there be starlight Tonight While she gathers Seashells And mussels And albatross feathers? And will she find treasure Or will she find pain At […]...
- The Proud Poet (For Shaemas O Sheel) One winter night a Devil came and sat upon my bed, His eyes were full of laughter for his heart was full of crime. “Why don’t you take up fancy work, or embroidery?” he said, “For a needle is as manly a tool as a pen that makes a rhyme!” “You […]...
- Genius Genius, like gold and precious stones, Is chiefly prized because of its rarity. Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild, Incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility, And get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter. Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres Far above the vulgar world and fills his soul With regal contempt for […]...
- O, Were I Loved As I Desire To Be! O, were I loved as I desire to be! What is there in the great sphere of the earth, Or range of evil between death and birth, That I should fear, – if I were loved by thee! All the inner, all the outer world of pain, Clear love would pierce and cleave, if thou […]...
- To the Reader As you read, a white bear leisurely Pees, dyeing the snow Saffron, And as you read, many gods Lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian Are watching the generations of leaves, And as you read The sea is turning its dark pages, Turning Its dark pages....
- On The Bible Behold this little volume here inrolde: ‘Tis the Almighty’s present to the world: Hearken earth’s earth; each sencelesse thing can heare His Maker’s thunder, though it want an eare: God’s word is senior to his works, nay rather If rightly weigh’d the world may call it father; God spake, ’twas done; this great foundation Is […]...
- Teddy Bear O Teddy Bear! with your head awry And your comical twisted smile, You rub your eyes do you wonder why You’ve slept such a long, long while? As you lay so still in the cupboard dim, And you heard on the roof the rain, Were you thinking. . . what has become of him? And […]...
- THE SINGING SCHOOL The Poetry School, The Poetry Book Society, The Poetry Business: So much poetry about you’d think I’d want to shout, “Hurray, hurray, Every day’s Poetry Day!” but I don’t and you don’t either- You know its flim-flam on the ether, grants for Jack-the-lads Of both sexes, poets who’ve never been seen in a little magazine […]...
- If Still Your Orchards Bear Brother, that breathe the August air Ten thousand years from now, And smell-if still your orchards bear Tart apples on the bough- The early windfall under the tree, And see the red fruit shine, I cannot think your thoughts will be Much different from mine. Should at that moment the full moon Step forth upon […]...
- At a Poetry Party I Am Given the Rhyme Chih Although I’ve studied poetry for thirty years I try to keep my mouth shut and avoid reputation. Now who is this nosy gentleman talking about my poetry Like Yang Ching-chih Who spoke of Hsiang Ssu everywhere he went....
- Laws for Creations LAWS for Creations, For strong artists and leaders-for fresh broods of teachers, and perfect literats for America, For noble savans, and coming musicians. All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the compact truth of the world; There shall be no subject too pronounced-All works shall illustrate the divine law of indirections. […]...
- The Triple Fool I am two fools, I know – For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry; But where’s that wiseman that would not be I, If she would not deny? Then, as th’ earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhymes […]...
- FOR JAMES SIMMONS Sitting in outpatients With my own minor ills Dawn’s depression lifts To the lilt of amitryptilene, A double dose for a day’s journey To a distant ward. The word was out that Simmons Had died eighteen months after An aneurism at sixty seven. The meeting he proposed in his second letter Could never happen: a […]...
- Her gentle hands She came at night, her gentle hands Defused the ticking bomb that was his brain, She soothed the pain and drew his livid Length inside, she sat astride to weld His broken head with anxious gaze And clever hands, gave praise, Encouraged him to try and see, To open up his eyes. He cried. She […]...
- Sunshine FOR A VERY LITTLE GIRL, NOT A YEAR OLD. CATHARINE FRAZEE WAKEFIELD. The sun gives not directly The coal, the diamond crown; Not in a special basket Are these from Heaven let down. The sun gives not directly The plough, man’s iron friend; Not by a path or stairway Do tools from Heaven descend. Yet […]...
- Hymn 46 part 1 God glorious, and sinners saved. Rom. 1:30; 5:8,9; 1 Pet. 3:22. Father, how wide thy glories shine! How high thy wonders rise! Known through the earth by thousand signs, By thousand through the skies. Those mighty orbs proclaim thy power, Their motions speak thy skill, And on the wings of every hour We read thy […]...
- Daisy Fraser Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received For supporting candidated for office? Or for writing up the canning factory To get people to invest? Or for suppressing the facts about the bank, When it was rotten and ready to break? Did you ever hear […]...
- Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory; But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet […]...
- Sonnet I FROM fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty’s rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed’st thy light’st flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet […]...
- Interview The ladies men admire, I’ve heard, Would shudder at a wicked word. Their candle gives a single light; They’d rather stay at home at night. They do not keep awake till three, Nor read erotic poetry. They never sanction the impure, Nor recognize an overture. They shrink from powders and from paints… So far, I’ve […]...
- Jack McGuire They would have lynched me Had I not been secretly hurried away To the jail at Peoria. And yet I was going peacefully home, Carrying my jug, a little drunk, When Logan, the marshal, halted me, Called me a drunken hound and shook me, And, when I cursed him for it, struck me With that […]...
- A HOPE FOR POETRY: REMEMBERING THE SIXTIES There was a hope for poetry in the sixties And for education and society, teachers free To do as they wanted: I could and did teach Poetry and art all day and little else – That was my way. I threw rainbows against the classroom walls, Gold and silver dragons in the corridors and Halls; […]...
- April 19 We have too much exhibitionism And not enough voyeurism In poetry we have plenty of bass And not enough treble, more amber Beer than the frat boys can drink but Less red wine than meets the lip In this beaker of the best Bordeaux, Too much thesis, too little antithesis And way too much New […]...
- My Masters Of Poetry I’ve been accused, But much more often I have not; Oh, I have been so much amused By those who’ve put me on the spot, And measured me by rules above Those I observe with equal love. An artisan of verse am I, Of simple sense and humble tone; My Thesaurus is handy […]...
- Armistice Day (1953) Don’t jeer because we celebrate Armistice Day, Though thirty years of sorry fate Have passed away. Though still we gaurd the Sacred Flame, And fly the Flag, That World War Two with grief and shame Revealed a rag. For France cannot defend to-day Her native land; And she is far to proud to pray For […]...
- Preface This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, dominion or power, except War. Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry. The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry […]...
- Haroun Al Raschid One day, Haroun Al Raschid read A book wherein the poet said: “Where are the kings, and where the rest Of those who once the world possessed? “They’re gone with all their pomp and show, They’re gone the way that thou shalt go. “O thou who choosest for thy share The world, and what the […]...
- The Poet The riches of the poet are equal to his poetry His power is his left hand It is idle weak and precious His poverty is his wealth, a wealth which may destroy him like Midas Because it is that laziness which is a form of impatience And this he may be destroyed by the gold […]...
- Dead poet I’m sure it would be easier to survive as a dead poet, I mean it in the surmise that I won’t be tempted To revise or rewrite the poem I wrote last night, or the Poems I wrote last week (which make me cringe when I Read them again), or when I read poetry of […]...
- Psalm 92 part 1 A Psalm for the Lord’s day. Sweet is the work, my God, my King, To praise thy name, give thanks and sing, To show thy love by morning light, And talk of all thy truth at night. Sweet is the day of sacred rest, No mortal cares shall seize my breast; O may my heart […]...