It is a great matter to observe propriety in these several modes of expression, as also in compound words, strange (or rare) words, and so forth. But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
—Aristotle, Poetics, translated by S. H. Butcher, Section III, Part XXII
advertencies of verse
All poetry is fragment: it is shaped by its breakages, at every turn. It is the very art of turnings, toward the white frame of the page, toward the unsung, toward the vacancy made visible, that wordlessness in which our words are couched. Its lines insistently defy their own medium by averting themselves from the space available, affording the absent its say, not only at the poem’s outset and end by at each line’s outset and end. Richard Howard’s deft maxim (“prose proceeds, verse reverses”) catches the shifts in directionality implicit in the advertencies of verse. It means to aim at (as its means are) the untoward.
A composed verse is a record of the meeting of the line and sentence, the advertent and the inadvertent: a succession of good turns done. The poem is not only a piece, like other pieces of art; it is a piece full of pieces.
Heather McHugh, Broken English: Poetry and Partiality (Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1993)
A composed verse is a record of the meeting of the line and sentence, the advertent and the inadvertent: a succession of good turns done. The poem is not only a piece, like other pieces of art; it is a piece full of pieces.
Heather McHugh, Broken English: Poetry and Partiality (Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1993)
poem or life
one does not begin a poem, one abandons one's life
—Mark Leidner, The Angel in The Dream of Our Hangover (Sator Press, 2011)
—Mark Leidner, The Angel in The Dream of Our Hangover (Sator Press, 2011)
cranial uplift
If I read a book it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way.
—Emily Dickinson (quoted by Higginson, Aug. 16, 1870, Letters, Vol. II, 473)
—Emily Dickinson (quoted by Higginson, Aug. 16, 1870, Letters, Vol. II, 473)
poetry or prose
What is poetry and if you know what poetry is what is prose.
—Gertrude Stein, Lectures in America (Random House, 1935, 209)
—Gertrude Stein, Lectures in America (Random House, 1935, 209)
village explainer
He [Ezra Pound] was a village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not.
—Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Harcourt Brace, NY, 1933. p. 246)
—Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Harcourt Brace, NY, 1933. p. 246)
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