03 January 2005

Whilst languishing against my stacked pillows – ill again, this time with a wracking cough that’s been firmly in place for the past fortnight – I came across some fine statements on the nature of poetry.  These all come from the introductions to two remarkable volumes produced by Neil Astley’s Bloodaxe Press, Staying Alive & its follow-up volume Being Alive.    Self-described as ‘the UK’s sharpest publisher’, Bloodaxe has probably had a more powerful influence on a public perception of poetry as dynamic & relevant than any other single source.  Through its various individual imprints & its blockbusting anthologies, Bloodaxe has been in the vanguard of the movement to establish poetry as a popular art form that actually arises from & caters directly to our most pressing needs. It has attacked resolutely (& without even a hint of dumbing the medium down) the prevalent notion that poetry must inevitably be the province of the effete, wilfully obscure & concerned more with linguistic pyrotechnics & obscurantist themes.   Poetry: the best words in the best order.  COLERIDGE   Poetry cannot be defined, only experienced. CHRISTOPHER LOGUE   Poetry is the breath & finer spirit of all knowledge… Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquillity. WORDSWORTH   Poetry …is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, & a new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences…a concentration which does not happen consciously or through deliberation… Poetry is not a turning loose from emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. T.S. ELIOT   A poem should not mean But be. ARCHIBALD MacLEISH   Poetry is that which arrives at the intellect by way of the heart. R.S. THOMAS   Poetry is essentially the soul’s search for its release in language. JOSEPH BRODSKY   The point of poetry is to be acutely discomforting, to prod & provoke, to poke us in the eye, to punch us in the nose, to knock us off our feet, to take our breath away. PAUL MULDOON   11:20:42 PM    Mmm? []

© Copyright 2005 Dick Jones. Last update: 01/02/2005; 22:41:20.