What About Poetry?
There is, in fact,
a world of poetry
indistinguishable from the world
in which we live,
or, as I ought to say, no doubt,
from the world in which we shall come to live,
since what makes the poet the potent figure
that he is, or was, or ought to be,
is that he creates the world to which we turn incessantly
and without knowing it and that he gives to life
the supreme fictions without which
we are unable to conceive of it.
……A poet’s words are of things
that do not exist without words.
This morning I arrived at Starbucks, at odds with myself. I felt conflicted about what to do with this Saturday. How to spend the time? Perhaps you have searched for a point to your life in such a delimited, “one day-at-a-time” manner? How to make this day meaningful? Unsure of what to write about I decided to finish up a Wallace Steven’s essay that I began to read several days ago. Stevens was a poet of considerable influence in the late 20th century. He also worked as an executive for an insurance company which lends some comfort to me. Your day job need not be at odds with the creative side of life. Pay the bills and do good work at the same time.
The remainder of the essay and these words in particular helped me resolve the disconnect that I felt about what to do with myself this day.
One thought on “What About Poetry?”
Poetry is the densest form of communication.