I Am A Young Gatekeeper Of An Ancient And Endangered Art
Poetry is more than line breaks. Just like a martini is more than vodka. And in fact, if you’re having a martini, especially one that is being use to symbolize poetry, it should be made with gin. This is because vodka is soulless. It doesn’t stand for itself; you can mix it into anything and get away with it, because vodka has no hard edges. It takes on the personality of its successor, especially when it comes to grapefruit juice. But gin always tastes specific, of juniper and Nordic sunshine and London in winter.
Poetry is more than line breaks. Just like the night is more than darkness. It also contains the cry of the deer and the silence of cold marriage beds, where the bewilderment of love settles and broods above a couple like a dove on a wire. Night also contains the stars, of course, which appear to us as pinpricks of light, even though many of them are really swollen nurseries of thousands of baby stars, buzzing blue with false promise, or Greek heroes eternally frozen in combat. The night is when you can kiss someone over and over, in a kind of relentless trance, with a warmth that no longer has to compete with sunlight. The night is when you are free to feel everything you have suppressed during the day, and these emotions often surprise you.
Poetry is not simply a collection of fragments, or worse, a cavalierly shattered run-on sentence. Poetry is both infinite and fleeting. It summons the memory of heaven, a place you long to go again, but remains painfully out of your reach. Except in moments and in dreams. Poetry is both the most mysterious and the most personal of all forms of art. At least it used to be. Now it is only ever one or the other.
Poetry is not accidental. It must be as formal, as purposeful, as delicate as an operation on a human heart. And yes, that parallel was intentional.
Poetry is not a bomb. It’s not built for self-destruction or confusion or chaos. It is not the right kind of weapon for cowards.
Someone should tell the poets this, but no one will. They only talk to each other.