March 20, 2008

Ars Poetica

Fiction is a bungalow --
preferably camouflaged,
with a high wit wind whistling through.
There is something in the attic
and someone about to ring the bell.

But a poem
          a poem,
                    it is a cathedral.
Still air
          rising,
                    ringing
                    the vaults;
finials,
          pinnacles,
                    pointing,
and all the little angels
          looking down.


          Between boughs, between even
          the teeth of pine cones, or seaming
          the backs of new blades, poems
          are in the name Forget-Me-Not, in the Sioux
          meaning "singing river" or the French
          for "silent mountain." They are the knowledge
          of a bird, its name, and journey,


While Fiction verbs from noun to noun
conflict crashing into crisis
determined to make good time, Poetry's
got its thumb out, its eyes upon the sky.

—Tracy Koretsky

Posted by dwaber at 03:44 PM