Poetry is......

I got into an interesting discussion last Sunday.  The question was, why don't poets just clearly state what they want to say.  Why the mystery?  Why the indirect hints and ambiguous language that require us to think and perhaps disagree on the point being made? So, because I cannot think of the words to directly explain my opinions on this, I thought I'd post some poems about what poetry is and why poets write poems.  If you'd like to suggest a poem that is effective in demonstrating this, send it to me. The first is long, but well worth it.

What He Thought

Heather McHugh

For Fabbio Doplicher

We were supposed to do a job in Italy

and, full of our feeling for

ourselves (our sense of being

Poets from America) we went

from Rome to Fano, met

the Mayor, mulled a couple

matters over. The Italian literati seemed

bewildered by the language of America: they asked us

what does "flat drink" mean? and the mysterious

"cheap date" (no explanation lessened

this one's mystery). Among Italian writers we

could recognize our counterparts: the academic,

the apologist, the arrogant, the amorous,

the brazen and the glib. And there was one

administrator (The Conservative), in suit

of regulation gray, who like a good tour guide

with measured pace and uninflected tone

narrated sights and histories

the hired van hauled us past.

Of all he was most politic--

and least poetic-- so

it seemed. Our last

few days in Rome

I found a book of poems this

unprepossessing one had written: it was there

in the pensione room (a room he'd recommended)

where it must have been abandoned by

the German visitor (was there a bus of them?) to whom

he had inscribed and dated it a month before. I couldn't

read Italian either, so I put the book

back in the wardrobe's dark. We last Americans

were due to leave

tomorrow. For our parting evening then

our host chose something in a family restaurant,

and there we sat and chatted, sat and chewed, till,

sensible it was our last big chance to be Poetic, make

our mark, one of us asked

"What's poetry?

Is it the fruits and vegetables

and marketplace at Campo dei Fiori

or the statue there?" Because I was

the glib one, I identified the answer

instantly, I didn't have to think-- "The truth

is both, it's both!" I blurted out. But that

was easy. That was easiest

to say. What followed taught me something

about difficulty,

for our underestimated host spoke out

all of a sudden, with a rising passion, and he said:

The statue represents

Giordano Bruno, brought

to be burned in the public square

because of his offence against authority, which was to say

the Church. His crime was his belief

the universe does not revolve around

the human being: God is no

fixed point or central government

but rather is poured in waves, through

all things: all things

move. "If God is not the soul itself,

he is the soul OF THE SOUL of the world." Such was

his heresy. The day they brought him forth to die

they feared he might incite the crowd (the man

was famous for his eloquence). And so his captors

placed upon his face

an iron mask

in which he could not speak.

That is how they burned him.

That is how he died,

without a word,

in front of everyone. And poetry--

(we'd all put down our forks by now, to listen to

the man in gray; he went on softly)-- poetry

is what he thought, but did not say.

Here's another:

Poetry

Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know,                                                                               
I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.

click here to hear Kim Rosen speak this poem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqZGNbbEMro