“Poems are never finished – just abandoned”
—Paul Valery“It’s just a moment, we die every night.”
—William Carlos Williams
“The artist is always beginning.”
—Ezra Pound
…never finished, always beginning…
A Prayer Like Gravity
Mundus vult decipi
“Poems are never finished – just abandoned”
—Paul Valery“It’s just a moment, we die every night.”
—William Carlos Williams
“The artist is always beginning.”
—Ezra Pound
…never finished, always beginning…
A Prayer Like Gravity 
…and the quote that WordPress popped up in he sidebar when I posted this was:
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
—Stephen King
…go figure…
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I’d agree most with Mr. king, on this one.
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The scariest moment for me is when it’s finished and I have to show it to someone….put it out there…but that’s why there’s this blog.
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My scariest moment is right before I click send or post.
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I hear you Alice. I think for me it’s actually after…but like, immediately after. The waiting and wondering kills me…
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Yup.;-)
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I adore the Ezra Pound one, especially. They are all great.
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I love a lot of what the Imagists had to say about poetry, even if I disagree with some of it and don’t necessarily care for some Imagist poems.
The rest of the quote gets a bit “preachy” for me but…
“Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.”
Value judgements based on….?
I found it questionable. I think I know what he’s getting at but it seems a bit harsh. I shy away from absolutes, especially in poetry.
Thank you–
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Some wonderful quotes here, JCC. Thanks for sharing them!
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Glad you liked, Susan.
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We are all works in progress which gives us the freedom to grow. Love this reminder about not only poetry, but life.
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Yes Kozo — so much of what can be said about one, can be equally applied to the other.
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I don’t know, Gravity. The first one has a touch of existential cynicism to it. The whole point of being a poet is in honing winnowing clarifying reducing exploring expanding on expounding on the simple pulses that urge a poet to write in the first place. More than words themselves. Words as body. A poet’s body can’t be abandoned. So thanks for the provocative post !
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Well, Light, the cynicism was not intentional. I was thinking more of not letting “perfect” get in the way of “good”. The abandonment is temporary. I abandon my poems here on this blog because if I don’t, I will hang on to them forever. I have to be able to say “it’s good enough, I can come back to it later.” This has not been an easy thing for me to do in the past.
The poet’s body cannot be abandoned, but the breath cannot be clung to. It must be let go.
As to “the point”, I could not agree more. “Words as body.” YES! Or “Words as breath.” These words are not my body.
Apparently unintentional provocation is my flavor of the week… 😦
I’ll shut up now…
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I think the body IS abandoned in a sense as you release your words to other’s interpretations. After its out there – it is no longer what you were thinking or how your perspective views it – your poem is as others take it, often much differently than you were thinking (at least in my world).
This made me think (sacrilegiously of course) of communion. Take it and eat… 🙂 and how that tradition is passed, how the meaning of it is interpreted in various ways…
Good post
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well guys..how many different interpretations have we come up with beginning with just six words. Pretty amazing. !
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Yes indeed, and Thank You — I now have the seed of my next Quoets post….
…coming soon…
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Oooh Mimsy–you and ms. Light have my head spinning with two topics that have been orbiting…meaning and breath…spinning…another seed for another Quoets post….
And the idea of communion…have you read any Norman O. Brown? He wrote a book “Love’s Body” where-in he applies psycho-analytical concepts to the Christian “myth”…this is very much what he speaks of as I recall…
now I have another book to dig out of the basement….
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