Picking Apart a Poem

Here are some of my notes and annotations concerning “Ars Poetica”

A poem should be palpable and mute   

As a globed fruit, (Here is our first example of the common rhyme pattern for the poem.)

(Does this mean that a poem should be easily peeled?- As in, it should be something that someone could pick apart and discover?)

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

(Not super sure what this means. I wonder if the author means dumb as in stupid or dumb as in speechless.)

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone (Here is the first example of the alliteration he uses in his comparisons.)

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless   

As the flight of birds.

(I like this one. Wordless could mean many things, but I would think it stands as “don’t add fluff to your poem, and don’t write things just to write things. Everything should have a purpose.”)

A poem should be motionless in time   

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,   

Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time   

As the moon climbs.

(These four stanzas take part in the longest example of what a poem should be. I wonder if he means that poems should be something in which should take our time reading. It’s almost as if, when we read poetry, time around us stops. If we read a poem the right way, the world, time, problems, worries, and struggles around us halt, and in these moments, we lose ourselves to the writings.)

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

(This stanza throws me off my trail. This whole time he has been saying what poems should equal to more or less, so what does that author mean by this line?)

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

(An empty doorway- a chance to start new?)

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

(I feel like the two lights above the sea refer to the sun and the moon- two constant things above the sea, just as love is constant.)

A poem should not mean   

But be.

(I would think that this is his main point of what poetry should do for someone. A poem shouldn’t be casually written or read, but it should be taken seriously, appreciated, inspiring. A poem should live within the heart of both writer and reader.)

Policy claim: Ars Poetica should inspire the reader to have a different view of what poetry is.  

Definition claim: Ars Poetica is more than a simple writing of poetry, rather it is a template of how we should view all poetic writings.

Comparison claim: The understanding of Ars Poetica is much unlike understanding film.

Evaluation claim: Ars Poetica does an excellent job at providing ways that one could decipher poetry.

Casual claim: The writing of Ars Poetica was caused from an experience that Macleish had with poetry.