object and value. i react, but my reactions exist in the real, even if what i react to is an illusion.
as a poet, i try to refine my feelings into a simple, single, feeling. i want to find the object of desire. not of disgust or desire, but desire. i establish a new value. then i react out again, renew or re-identify myself as a being in control, a ‘knowing poet’ and whatever else i identify with and package for, during the writing of, that poem.
this is idealism, this is thought. i act out my thinking: my reactions to a trigger are acted out in a structured, controllable way. but, i am sharing this or even projecting this intentionally out to the other. that is, a poem is not a ‘thought’, it’s a behavior. a behavior is a studied or learned or maybe even a physical reaction which is acted out within a narrow world of our total human self world. we speak, move… that is, play out in time and space. connect with the other, the outside of ourselves. direct ourselves to some one thing — define and narrow our need for someone else to satisfy. who we are calling to defines, in poetry, by whom we trust. we trust the authority but also the reader — we’re communicators, meaning we’re expecting a response — we don’t shout into a vacuum knowing, defining it as a vacuum and expecting anything other than our own self assertion — of physically being a real person.
we make things seem real. as a poet we present ideals as physical, emotionally valid, objective reality. that’s why all poems are love poems. that we attach an image, just as i might have an image in my mind of to whom i’m wishing the poem, is secondary — their identity — to the reality that we’ve come up with a mind solution at all. poetry is a pin on the tip of a coiled spring, snapping back at us when we find the spring’s tension limit, the limit of life’s tolerance of our behavior… of how far we can go in blaming others or even our self ( if we’re charitable towards our selves at all. )
poetry can be judged. a poem is a reaction, and in any game we can watch how the player responds, and judge the adequacy of that response to the game’s reality, not just by our ( poet and reader’s ) aesthetic needs. even if we were so needy that we think that sense satisfaction from soothing words is all we asking for.
poetryandpoet 