Some Great Sayings on POETRY - 3
PALANA (nparinand@cas.org)
Thu, 29 May 1997 17:37:01 -0400
"Poetry is not magic.
In so far as poetry, or any other of the arts, can be said to have an ulterior
purpose, it is, by telling the TRUTH, to disenchant and disintoxicate."
--Auden, W.H.
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"The voice of our poets and men of letters is finely trained and sweet to hear;
it teems with sharp saws and rich sentiment; it is a marvel of delicate
technique; it pleases, it flatters, it charms, it soothes; it is a living lie.
--Sorley
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"The poetry of the beginning and the poetry of the end must have that exquisite
finaity, perfection which belongs to all that is far off. It is in the realm of
all that is perfect. It is of the nature of all that is complete and consummate.
This completeness, this consummateness, the finality and the perfection are
conveyed in exquisite form: the perfect symmetry, the rhythm which returns upon
itself like a dance where the hands link and loosen and link for the supreme
moment of the end...
But there is another kind of poetry: the poetry of that which is at hand: the
IMMEDIATE PRESENT. In the immediate present there is no perfection, no
consummation, nothing finished.......
>From the foregoing it is obvious that the poetry of the instant present cannot
have the same body or the same motion as the poetry of the BEFORE and AFTER. It
can never submit to the same conditions. It is never finished. There is no
RHYTHM which returns upon itself, no serpent of eternity with its tail in its
own mouth. There is no STATIC PERFECTION none of that finally which we find so
satisfying because WE ARE SO FRIGHTENED.
Much has been written about free verse. But all that can be said, first and
last, is that free verse is, or should be, direct utterance from the instant,
whole man. It is the SOUL and the MIND and BODY surging at once, nothing left
out. They speak all together. There is some confusion, some discord. But the
confusion and the discord only belong to the REALITY as noise belongs to the
plunge of water..............
D.H. Lawrence.
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--pAlana