into protracted forms of wish fulfillment, seems most intent on establishing the priority
of mental states. But the purpose of the poem is not disclosure or storytelling or the
telling of a daydream; nor is a poem a symptom. A poem is itself and is the act by which
it is born. It is self-referential and is not necessarily preceded by any known order,
except that of other poems.
If poems often do not refer to any known experience, to nothing that will characterize
their being, and thus cannot be understood so much as absorbed, how can considerations of
craft be applied when they are justified on the grounds that they enhance communication?
This is perhaps one of the reasons why most discussions of craft fall short of dealing
with the essentials of poetry. Perhaps the poem is ultimately a metaphor for something
unknown, its working-out a means of recovery. It may be that the retention of the absent
origin is what is necessary for the continued life of the poem as inexhaustible artifact.
(Though words may represent things or actions, in combination they may represent something
else — the unspoken, hitherto-unknown unity of which the poem is the example.)
Furthermore, we might say that the degree to which a poem is explained or paraphrased is
precisely the degree to which it ceases being a poem. If nothing is left of the poem, it
has become the paraphrase of itself, and readers will experience the paraphrase in place
of the poem. It is for this reason that poems must exist not only in language but beyond
it.
from Strand’s The Weather of Words. (New York: Random House, Inc. 2000)
Use of this excerpt from The Weather of Words may be made only for purposes of
promoting the book, with no changes, editing, or additions whatsoever, and must be
accompanied by the following copyright notice: Copyright ? 2000 by Mark Strand. All
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