Wislawa Szymborska gives some excellent advice about how to write (and not write) poetry.
“Your existential pains come a trifle too easily. We’ve had enough despair and gloomy depths. ‘Deep thoughts,’ dear Thomas says (Mann, of course, who else), ‘should make us smile.’ Reading your own poem ‘Ocean,’ we found ourselves floundering in a shallow pond. You should think of your life as a remarkable adventure that’s happened to you. That is our only advice at present.”
and a bit later, this fantastic definition of poetry from Sandburg:
“A definition of poetry in one sentence—well. We know at least five hundred definitions, but none of them strikes us as both precise and capacious enough. Each expresses the taste of its own age. Inborn skepticism keeps us from trying our hand at our own. But we remember Carl Sandburg’s lovely aphorism: ‘Poetry is a diary kept by a sea creature who lives on land and wishes he could fly.’ Maybe he’ll actually make it one of these days?”
(via Out of the Woods Now)
Tags: Poetry
September 7th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
I’m not quite sure I agree with the first one, particularly the assertion that “Deep thoughts should make us smile.” I can certainly think of deep matters that ought to drive the thinker to tears. But I agree that not all deep thoughts should be gloomy and despairing. And, angst and despair do not in themselves make something a work of art.
There can be good insight from expressing “existential pains”, but unless you’re saying something new, it’s unlikely you’ll obtain the empathy of the reader.