Angels and Demons: How is our Poetry Really Written?

·        My Claim, from the poem “Ars Poetica?” By Czeslaw Milosz, is that Poetry can be influenced by many outside pressures, and Milosz insists that spirits have a large role to play in shaping our poems. I argue that Poets are in charge of their own poems, and not subject to which angel or demon decides to whisper in their ear today, however I admit that there are other real outside influences that can mold or shape our poetry in a large variety of ways.

·        In the poem Milosz says, “…poems should be written rarely and reluctantly, under unbearable duress and only with the hope that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument. He points to the example of legion in the Bible, a hoard of demons who possessed a man, and attempts to explain that they are capable of influencing our poetry. While this may possibly have happened to him, I argue that this is not the norm for most poets, and that we are in control of our own thoughts and what we choose to write.

·        Other outside influences can have a big effect on our poetry, some of the ones I may talk about in my paper are culture, ethnicity, gender, upbringing, and circumstance, as these things give us varying outlooks on life.

·        Some literary analysis tools I plan to use, and things I would like to explore in more detail are the author’s allusion to the Bible, the form used, where all lines are similar lengths and split into groups of four, and how in some ways it seems like the author tries to use different voices, as if actually writing with the influences of varying angels and demons.