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Ars Poetica.PDF poetry type: ARS POETICA {on poetry as an art form} pdf contents: A True Poem, by Lloyd Schwartz Adam’s Curse, by W. B. Yeats Always on the Train, by Ruth Stone Ars Poetica (cocoons), by Dana Levin Ars Poetica, by Anthony Butts Ars Poetica, by Archibald MacLeish Ars Poetica, by Dorothea Lasky Ars Poetica, by Paul Verlaine Ars Poetica, by Primus St. John Ars Poetica, by Vicente Huidobro Ars Poetica?, by Czeslaw Milosz Arthur’s Anthology of English Poetry, by Laurence Lerner Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry, by Howard Nemerov Blue or Green, by James Galvin Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks, by Jane Kenyon Cockroaches: Ars Poetica, by Chad Davidson Endnote, by Hayden Carruth Envoi, by William Meredith Five Poems about Poetry, by George Oppen If It All Went Up in Smoke, by George Oppen Languages, by Carl Sandburg Light (an Ars Poetica), by Michael Cirelli Mars Poetica, by Wyn Cooper Stilling to North, by Arthur Sze Take the I Out, by Sharon Olds Teaching the Ape to Write Poems, by James Tate The Indications [excerpt], by Walt Whitman The Novel as Manuscript, by Norman Dubie 1 A True Poem, by Lloyd Schwartz I’m working on a poem that’s so true, I can’t show it to anyone. I could never show it to anyone. Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me. Sometimes it pleases me. Usually it brings misery. And this poem says exactly what I think. What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover. Exactly. Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them. Some of it might bring misery. And I don’t want to hurt them, I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want everyone to love me. Still, I keep working on it. Why? Why do I keep working on it? Nobody will ever see it. Nobody will ever see it. I keep working on it even though I can never show it to anybody. I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt. 2 Adam’s Curse, by W. B. Yeats We sat together at one summer’s end, That beautiful mild woman, your close friend, And you and I, and talked of poetry. I said, “A line will take us hours maybe; Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought, Our stitching and unstitching has been naught. Better go down upon your marrow-bones And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather; For to articulate sweet sounds together Is to work harder than all these, and yet Be thought an idler by the noisy set Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen The martyrs call the world.” And thereupon That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There’s many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied, “To be born woman is to know— Although they do not talk of it at school— That we must labour to be beautiful.” I said, “It’s certain there is no fine thing Since Adam’s fall but needs much labouring. There have been lovers who thought love should be So much compounded of high courtesy That they would sigh and quote with learned looks precedents out of beautiful old books; Yet now it seems an idle trade enough.” We sat grown quiet at the name of love; We saw the last embers of daylight die, And in the trembling blue-green of the sky A moon, worn as if it had been a shell Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell About the stars and broke in days and years. I had a thought for no one’s but your ears: That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we’d grown As weary-hearted as that hollow moon. 3 Always on the Train, by Ruth Stone Writing poems about writing poems is like rolling bales of hay in Texas. Nothing but the horizon to stop you. But consider the railroad’s edge of metal trash; bird perches, miles of telephone wires. What is so innocent as grazing cattle? If you think about it, it turns into words. Trash is so cheerful; flying up like grasshoppers in front of the reaper. The dust devil whirls it aloft; bronze candy wrappers, squares of clear plastic--windows on a house of air. Below the weedy edge in last year’s mat, red and silver beer cans. In bits blown equally everywhere, the gaiety of flying paper and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds. 4 Ars Poetica (cocoons), by Dana Levin Six monarch butterfly cocoons clinging to the back of your throat— you could feel their gold wings trembling. You were alarmed. You felt infested. In the downstairs bathroom of the family home, gagging to spit them out— and a voice saying Don’t, don’t— 5 Ars Poetica, by Anthony Butts –Detroit, Michigan Broad-ribbed leaves of the calathea plant trickle water down into the mouth of its pot as if it’s still fighting off competitors in the wild as kittens scamper past, the knees of their hind legs bending backwards with inhuman ease, like teenage boys leaping for rebounds on playgrounds, their hourglass sleekness glistening like the shards of forty-ounces littering the court: sons of southern autoworkers still unfamiliar with the Michigan that has taken them in, girls watching from windows as they care for the children of older sisters. The act of wanting offers only the hope of movement, for every target an aim, lives spent in the in-between, multitudes of coexisting in this particular filament as if no other were possible--American engines turning in a summertime traffic jam, white clouds from factories as if shift whistles sent them forth: the mind propelled by possibility and promise, an unbreakable stasis. The person who wanted us has come and gone several times like a tulip bulb’s inhaled and exhaled lives: desire, the seed itself, creating. See what others see in us, that gem which no one owns, our skin a concept, a bloom of imagination like one’s own yearning unfulfilled--unchecked as poison ivy, the fumes of its combustion more dangerous than the vine ignored. Boys want shots to drop. Girls want what’s through the window, not anything close by or far afield, just the usual. Cat-backed Swedish and German automobiles scoot down the boulevard, someone else’s barbecue cooking across the street. Desire never lies beyond what’s given. 6 I have hated the second-hand world. Who was that person divided between the glances of passersby? Bodies decompose, even in memory-- the hand-in-hand of melted hourglass, bloody hips of gifted tulips detached and traveling the earth, until the mind puts an end to them like breakers washing out to sea. “Fine neighbors," someone will say. “Quiet types," because no one really knew them until the press run. Packing kernels inundate the universe: far off, coalescence; close in, vibration and sparking. Upon each smooth surface, each body, Picasso portraits, light and dark. 7 Ars Poetica, by Archibald MacLeish 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 all 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. 8 Ars Poetica?, by Czeslaw Milosz I have always aspired to a more spacious form that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose and would let us understand each other without exposing the author or reader to sublime agonies. In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us, so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out and stood in the light, lashing his tail. That’s why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion, though it’s an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel. It’s hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from, when so often they’re put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty. What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons, who behave as if they were at home, speak in many tongues, and who, not satisfied with stealing his lips or hand, work at changing his destiny for their convenience? It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only joking or that I’ve devised just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony. There was a time when only wise books were read, helping us to bear our pain and misery.
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