A Quote by Mieczyslaw Jastrun
Poetry, in the entire course of its development, has always been trying to capture meanings and problems which are still obscure and dormant. Poetry tries to awaken them with a kiss, wherever they may be: in the air, in things, in human beings.
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Poetry has always been this completely alien art to me. I am the sort of bloke who, when he gets into things, generally tries to have a go at doing them. But I've never thought I could write poetry.
There's a sameness about American poetry that I don't
think represents the whole people. It represents a poetry
of the moment, a poetry of evasion, and I have problems
with this. I believe poetry has always been political, long
before poets had to deal with the page and white
space . . . it's natural.
Poetry is like air. It's one of the necessary things. Everyone benefits from poetry. And as you know, poetry is international. There are only two things that are truly international, poetry and wine.
There are things which some people never attempt during their whole lives, but one of these is not poetry. Poetry attacks all human beings sooner or later, and, like the measles, is mild or violent according to the age of the sufferer.
My work is based upon contemporary Greek poetry - poetry which is concerned with the problems of today's civilization and, of course, with simple personal feelings of love, nostalgia, etc.
Poetry and music are the best at the highest level of the human mind. Out of poetry, out of their need for poetry, human beings have developed the idea of God. And so when we sing, when we dance, when we speak poetry we are speaking out of God's mouth, each other out of the music from God's heart.
My feeling is that poetry is also a healing process, and then when a person tries to write poetry with depth or beauty, he will find himself guided along paths which will heal him, and this is more important, actually, than any of the poetry he writes.
There are still many tribal cultures where poetry and song, there is just one word for them. There are other cultures with literacy where poetry and song are distinguished. But poetry always remembers that it has its origins in music.
I'm not really quiet or shy. Ask any of my friends! But I always ground my poetry in life itself. Poetry is an art of language, though, so I am always aware of every word's meaning, or multiple meanings.
Poetry was syllable and rhythm. Poetry was the measurement of breath. Poetry was time make audible. Poetry evoked the present moment; poetry was the antidote to history. Poetry was language free from habit.
Poetry has an indirect way of hinting at things. Poetry is feminine. Prose is masculine. Prose, the very structure of it, is logical; poetry is basically illogical. Prose has to be clear-cut; poetry has to be vague - that's its beauty, its quality. Prose simply says what it says; poetry says many things. Prose is needed in the day-to-day world, in the marketplace. But whenever something of the heart has to be said, prose is always found inadequate - one has to fall back to poetry.
The charge frequently leveled against poetry - that it is difficult, obscure, hermetic and whatnot - indicates not the state of poetry but, frankly, the rung of the evolutionary ladder on which society is stuck.
I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.
There have always been great defenses of poetry, and I've tried to write mine, and I think all of my work and criticism is a defense of poetry to try and keep something alive in poetry.
But most love poetry is awful; nobody knows how to write good love poetry either. But that's not a reason not to write love poetry. Some of the best poetry ever written has been love poetry, and some of the greatest poetry ever written has been political poetry.
I'm saying that the domain of poetry includes both oral & written forms, that poetry goes back to a pre-literate situation & would survive a post-literate situation, that human speech is a near-endless source of poetic forms, that there has always been more oral than written poetry, & that we can no longer pretend to a knowledge of poetry if we deny its oral dimension.
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