The Prose Thread

Barroom Hero

I happen to think that poetic language is always more effective than prose language. The underlying message of a good poem seems to speak more to the soul and have more human comprehension than prose.

Maybe MacLeish says it better.

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.

FinsburyParkCarrots

"Thanum an dhul" means "Your soul to the Devil" and is actually a very serious curse in Ireland!

FinsburyParkCarrots

I agree that poetry should be, rather than "mean". A poem's expressive potential is contained within the text itself and in its relationship with the reader, and the role of the author in the transmission of that communicative act is of no consequence bar bibliographical or biographical, extra-textual consideration. If the poem is good enough, the poem's intention will be in the variety of effects in the text. This may sound odd to some, but ultimately, readers "write" or construct poems from what they are, and not what authors hope poems to mean or prescribe.