translated by Robert Bly
"...In these terms, one will surely understand what I consider to be the function of poetry. It is to nourish the spirit of man by giving him the cosmos to suckle. We have only to lower our standard of dominating nature and to raise our standard of participating in it in order to make the reconciliation take place. When man becomes proud to be not just the site where ideas and feelings are produced, but also the crossroad where they divide and mingle, he will be ready to be saved. Hope therefore lies in a poetry through which the world so invades the spirit of man that he becomes almost speechless, and later reinvents a language. Poets should in no way concern themselves with human relationships, but should get to the very bottom. Society, furthermore, takes good care of putting them there, and the love of things keeps them there; they are the ambassadors of the silent world. As such, they stammer, they murmur, they sink into the darkness of logos - until at last they reach the level of ROOTS, where things and formulas are one.
This is why, whatever one says, poetry is much more important than any other art, any other science. This is also why poetry has nothing in common with what appears in the poetry anthologies of today. True poetry is what does not pretend to be poetry. It is in the dogged drafts of a few maniacs seeking the new encounter. "
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"I'm always wary of anyone who tries to define what poetry is or what it should be. Whenever I read what they write, I substitute the word, painting, or drama, or the novel, or a prose vignette, . . . . and if their definition of what poetry is or should be still holds true with the word "drama" or "a play" substituted, then I know the definition is not totally true ONLY for poetry or the poem. I don't like taking things for granted. I don't like preaching to the choir. But what I love about Ponge's quote is that he finally gets to the bottom line truth of it when he says that poetry is "in the dogged drafts of a few maniacs seeking the new encounter," and that reminds me of Rollo May's quote about "the creative encounter." I like the word "encounter." It implies some kind of action, not a passive reflection or meditation, but a meeting up with, or, to be more precise, as the dictionary defines the word encounter, "to meet in conflict; battle." The poet then, if we take that word encounter as our touchstone, is a warrior. Perhaps that's why I grow weary of all those "reflective" poems that do not encounter, that do not participate and reconcile, as Ponge says. But, of course, plays can do that too, as can paintings, novels, short stories, etc. Alas, it's hard to say what poetry is, to say what the "function" of poetry is. I had a table that was unbalanced, it kept tilting. I could have cut off half an inch of one of the legs, but instead, I got a think book of poetry and stuck it under the table leg, and now the table doesn't tilt. It's balanced. Now there's a "function" of poetry that can't be topped. Now we're getting down to business. Poetry brings balance to the tilting world. --jack grapes, one of the maniacs.
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