Shaping A Poetic

[Ded Poet]

What makes a poem?


ARS POETICA
by Archibald Macleash

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 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.

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Do you agree with the last two lines of this poem?
Can a poem be true or false?

Let this be a place where we discuss our thoughts and questions about poetry--what it means to write poetry, what constitutes a poem, and whether or not it matters.

DP

 

[SA Storm]

.

 

[daughter]

I agree

Ded Poet--

Some believe that to value the technical is to somehow devalue the art. I disagree. I think what a makes a poem is resonance.
I want my work to elicit emotion, connection, and memory. To be is to exist with someone long after the reading has ended. That's a poem.

Peace,

daughter