Returning to our discussion the other day about poetry, I'll quote a bit of an article I read recently, "A inutilidade da poesia," by the Brazilian poet Alcides Buss:
"Jorge Luis Borges, em palestras que deu na Universidade de Harvard (EUA) nos anos 67 e 68 do século passado, socorreu-se de Santo Agostinho para dobrar-se ao mistério da poesia: “Sei o que é, mas se me perguntam, já não sei”. Do poema, sim, artefato urdido em palavras, sabia explicar seus recursos preciosos, as artimanhas dos poetas prediletos, as técnicas exercidas com virtuosismo. Mas a poesia, este era um domínio do mistério!
[Jorge Luis Borges, in lectures he gave at Harvard in 67 and 68, enlisted St. Augustine in considering the mystery of poetry: "I know what it is, but if you ask me, I no longer know." He could delineate the the precious resources of the poem itself, that creation of woven words. He could discuss his favorite poets' tricks and the virtuosic techniques involved.]
Filha do acaso ou fruto do cálculo? Octavio Paz (O arco e a lira) enumera dezenas de conceitos, ou quase-conceitos, que permeiam os livros que tratam deste assunto: oração, litania, exorcismo, magia, sublimação, súplica ao vazio, diálogo com a ausência, pensamento não dirigido. Impossibilitado de chegar a um termo conclusivo, vale-se da metáfora para buscar uma aproximação: “O poema é um caracol onde ressoa a música do mundo”. A analogia é mais do que válida, pois é de supor-se que todo poema possa conter ou emitir poesia, essa vibração que nos “soa” sempre inaugural e íntima.
[Daughter of chance or fruit of calculated labor? Octavio Paz (The bow and the lyre] lists dozens of concepts, or quasi-concepts, that permeate books on this subject: oration, litany, exorcism, magic, sublimation, supplication to the void, dialogue with absence, undirected thought. Finding it impossible to arrive at a conclusive term, he resorts to metaphor for an approximation: "The poem is a shell where the music of the world resounds." The analogy is more than valid, because it implies that every poem can contain or emit poetry, that vibration that always sounds inaugural and intimate.]
Ela, porém, senhora de mil e um sortilégios, não é moradora exclusiva do poema. Sabemos nós, aqueles de sentidos boquiabertos para as manhãs de cada dia, que as orquídeas, petúnias e margaridas são generosas em conteúdo poético. E o que dizer das pontes ao crepúsculo, do farfalhar das ondas do mar ao pôr-do-sol, dos cantares do uirapuru e do sabiá-laranjeira?
[She, however, senhora of a thousand and one fates, does not exclusively inhabitant the poem. Those of us who see the wonder of every morning know that orchids, petunias, and daisies are generous in their poetic content. And what is there to say about bridges at twilight, the murmur of the waves of the sea at sunset, the songs of the wren and the thrush?]"
I agree with Buss, Borges, and Paz. I think I've always felt this way, but it wasn't until I read this article that my thoughts on the topic clarified a bit. I think poetry is a quality that is "bigger" than the poem itself. It can manifest itself in music, art (particularly photography), nature, etc. Also, I think that the fact that Borges and Paz could not arrive at a satisfactory definition is telling, and, rather than discrediting the thoughts they have on the topic, points to the mystery and the import of the poetic. As Borges reminds us in his reference to St. Augustine, the difficulty we have in defining something like time, something which we all have a very immediate and phenomenologically verifiable experience of, points to its power and its import and its immediacy, not to a conclusion along the lines of, "Well, if we can't define it, it must not exist."
The next step I need to think about more. What, then, are some qualities of the poetic? When we call an orchid or a photograph poetic, what is linking the two?
I think one aspect is a certain concision or brevity. And, similarly, a certain concentration or density. Perhaps it is related to the sense of image. There is a sense I have of the poetic residing in the image that arrests me and strikes me as "true" in a quite mysterious sense.
J
