Against Art

[PrinceMyshkin]

If you write it down
you kill it.
It may twitch or tremble
when you look at it,
it may sparkle
with nothing less than raw life
but on the page
it isn’t very much:

a bit of cleverness, some folderol
with words, a gasp or tickle
(you hope) in your reader’s mind,
but compared with the living thing,
it is a barely recognizable voice
at the end
of a bad telephone connection.

[Hawkman]

Sweet Prince, The title tempted me to quote Herman Goering but the poem makes it quite unjustified. I'm not sure the opening line is true though. If by writing it down we killed it, we'd all give up there and then, and you didn't and for good reason! Perhaps it would be better to say that If we write it down we tame it.

As always, something to think about, Thanks.

H

[AuntShecky]

If we didn't write it down, we wouldn't have it.

[PrinceMyshkin]

If we didn't write it down, we wouldn't have it.

Well, we write (them) down for such a diversity of reasons... There's a glorious scene early in Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth where the obsessed painter,Gulley Jimpson, stands before a blank canvas, contemplating his first stroke. The description is such that one thinks of God about to create the universe. Yes, a very good film adaptation was made of it, starring Alec Guiness, but it couldn't include all the quotations from Gulley's beloved William Blake.

Did you manage to avoid the whole of the Oscars? People like yourself should not subsequently have access to the names of the winners!

[Virgil]

This really sparkles, and though the subject has been said before, it's incredibly original and fresh. Each phrase seems to sparkle. I was sorry to see this end.

[TheEarthIsRound]

A death for another birth. Perhaps the act of writing "it" down is art as well?

[PrinceMyshkin]

A death for another birth. Perhaps the act of writing "it" down is art as well?

The act of writing it down, the impulse to write it down, will always likely be something of a mystery to me. In my own doing I've identified: competitiveness, prompted by the best of the poems posted here; a cry against loneliness and for attention; a love of the craft, the magic of what words can sometimes do... and perhaps there are other motivations I have yet to sniff out.

[TheEarthIsRound]

The act of writing it down, the impulse to write it down, will always likely be something of a mystery to me. In my own doing I've identified: competitiveness, prompted by the best of the poems posted here; a cry against loneliness and for attention; a love of the craft, the magic of what words can sometimes do... and perhaps there are other motivations I have yet to sniff out.

You have just identified (from my very limited philosophy) where art comes from! Conform to art; as it is part of you and you a part of it =) my point of view though

[PrinceMyshkin]

You have just identified (from my very limited philosophy) where art comes from! Conform to art; as it is part of you and you a part of it =) my point of view though

I understand, but if you derive your concept of art wholly from outside you, where does the you come into it?

[paperleaves]

What a delightfully provoking poem--I especially like the ending. Sometimes I feel as if I am doing more harm than good by writing, but I am just so inspired that showcasing it seems necessary.

:)
love
Kate