Ars Poetica
Archibald Macleish was born in Glencoe, Illinois. He served in World War I, which was a very important time in his life. He attended Yale for Undergraduate Studies and harvard Law School. (SMartguy)
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.
In this poem about poetry, the speaker describes how readers should view and treat poetry. It is apparent that the speaker does not think we currently treat poetry correctly, but he presents very abstract solutions to the problem. The speaker asserts "A poem should not mean but be," stating that often poetry is over-analyzed to the point that it is no longer appropriately appreciated. "A poem" is compared throughout the poem to different aspects of nature and the environment. This connection possibly asserts that, like our environment and the animals in it, poetry comes from the minds of men, and is thus natural. And because it is presented as natural, it should be appreciated from afar rather than through exploitation (which has become a problem for the environment the past three or four centuries.) The rhyme scheme consists of couplets, which adds to pleasant voice the poem presents to the ear. The speaker gives the impression that a poem, once conceived on paper and gone from the poets mind, becomes a separate entity in itself; the poet no longer has control of that work. It simply exists. As a result, if the poet, the one who conceived the poem, is unable to control (or tame) the poem successfully, then how could a reader possibly do so successfully? We can't, and speaker dissuades us from even trying.
I really liked the way a poem was used to explicate how we should generally treat poems. This poem gives the voice of and opinions of all the other poems without a voice!
#Ars #Poetica #hashtag #poetry #analysis #OGLappy #couplets #abstract # environment
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