why a poem works for me

here’s the crux:

as a poet i invent the concept AS the text is formed… formed into a poem object.

1. the text is the look of the clay AFTER it is shaped. the writing, the shaping, is the monologue of the poet’s LOGO into the world.

2. the need to make order. the need to make order out of a frightening chaos. the concept, the object we call a concept, is a picture of order, a ‘solution’. the concept-act is inventing a ‘solution’. a solution is an invention which orders doubt. The concept is an invention of a solution and is the solution itself. This is the reality of authors. We create our experience of chaos, like anyone — everyone’s fear or love is of their own reaction and capability to respond in reaction.

we, authors, place into the world objects — things which stay as wordings — as solutions to our doubt and fears. even when we pretend to be objective — and, isn’t irony just pushing our fear into the closet — out of sight? And isn’t ‘rationalism’ just fear reduced to, turned into, the banal…? rationalism is whatever confuses you deconstructed into its static and active threats… held to the light… for manipulation of the psyche into certainty. ( rationally, you can’t know what you don’t know. )

3. the poem is a construction for a task. the task is to re-associate the self with the body. to reconcile with external necessities, for survival. a poet’s task is different from a consumer’s task in that we invent our own visions and produce a world where our visions are real. Poets hope, but always know, that in the end a poem is a suicide note — a final thing said. Poets know that a poem must be that true to be a real poem. The task is to live with the word both as it is and how we wish it to be.

this conflict of hope and fear tears the poem in two. A MAGIC poem is when the two impulses of hope and fear are fused into a new emotion — one invented in and for the moment. A romantic fusion of death and life, fear and survival. love and hope, pain and loss.

4. the hope to make thought ‘clear’. so, the question now is ‘what is thought made of? and, is my poem a picture of my thought or the invention of a thought… ?