Outer Banks, North Carolina — Computer Painting by kenne
Decoding Poetry
Poetry
What is it?
Is it not all things
Feeling?
Thoughts?
Ideas?
Wisdom?
Beauty?
Music?
Art?
in human existence?
Is it not all things
Love?
Hate?
Despair?
Fear?
Greed?
Charity?
of human experience?
Yet,
some claim
the words of poetry,
as if anointed
announcing to the world,
“I know the code!”
Poetry is not code,
allowing entrance
only to a few
fettered and packaged
for the scholarly.
If I experience
my own life
in the words another,
it is poetry –
for it is I
who holds the code
to my existence.
In the end,
there is no right
or wrong answer –
poetry is like dancing,
if it feels good,
do it!
— kenne
I always thought Ars Poetica summed it up fairly well, but I like yours, too:
Ars Poetica
Archibald MacLeish, 1892 – 1982
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.
I like it. Had not read it— thanks for sharing.
From Wallace Stevens:
The poet makes silk dresses out of worms.
Wallace is one of poets — thanks for sharing.