98. Ars poetica

Yesterday I posted (among other poems by Rita Dove) an ars poetica, and commented how much I enjoy these explorations of "the art of poetry." As the Poetry Foundation defines the genre, "Ars poetica . . . [refers] to a poem, treatise, or essay written by a poet about the nature, purpose, and craft of poetry itself. It acts as a 'poem about poetry,' exploring how and why poems are created, often offering advice on poetic style or defining the role of the poet." 

The term originated with the Roman poet Horace’s Epistula ad Pisones (c. 19 BC), a 476-line letter advising on poetic craft (conciseness, unity, and style). In it he wrote, "As is painting, so is poetry: some pieces will strike you more if you stand near, and some, if you are at a greater distance: one loves the dark; another, which is not afraid of the critic’s subtle judgment, chooses to be seen in the light; the one has pleased once the other will give pleasure if ten times repeated."

The term is also well known from Archibald MacLeish's poem, with its pithy final couplet:

Ars Poetica 

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

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.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

But what brought me here today was stumbling (good ol' FB) on the following poem, which got me searching for more, a couple of which I present to you here. (There are many, many, many more.)

Mugged by Poetry

by Dorianne Laux

—for Tony Hoagland, who sent me a handmade chapbook made from old postcards called OMIGOD POETRY with a whale breaching off the coast of New Jersey and seven of his favorite poems by various authors typed up, taped on, and tied together with a broken shoelace.

Reading a good one can make me love the one who wrote it,
as well as the animal or element or planet or person
the poet wrote it for. I end up as I always do,
flat on my back like a drunk in the grass, loving the world.
Like right now, I'm reading a poem called "Summer"
by John Ashbery, whose poems I never much cared for,
and suddenly in the dead of winter, There is that sound
like the wind / Forgetting in the branches that means
something / Nobody can translate . . . I fall in love
with that line, can actually hear it (not the line
but the wind) and it's summer again and I forget
I don't like John Ashbery poems. So I light a cigarette
and read another by Zbigniew Herbert, a poet
I've always admired but haven't read enough of, called
"To Marcus Aurelius" that begins Good night Marcus
put out the light / and shut the book For overhead / is raised
a gold alarm of stars . . . First of all I suddenly love
anyone with the name Zbigniew. Second of all I love
anyone who speaks in all sincerity to the dead
and by doing so brings that personage back to life,
plunging a hand through the past to flip on the light.
The astral physics of it just floors me. Third of all
is that "gold alarm of stars . . ." By now I'm a goner,
and even though I have to get up tomorrow at 6 am
I forge ahead and read "God's Justice" by Anne Carson,
another whose poems I'm not overly fond of
but don't actively disdain. I keep reading one line
over and over, hovering above it like a speckled starling
spying on the dragonfly with turquoise dots all down its back
like Lauren Bacall. Like Lauren Bacall!! Well hell,
I could do this all night. I could be in love like this
for the rest of my life, with everything in the expanding
universe and whatever else might be beyond it
that we can't grind a lens big enough to see. I light up
another smoke, maybe the one that will kill me,
and go outside to listen to the moon scalding
the iced trees. What, I ask you, will become of me?

Ars Poetica

by José Olivarez

Migration is derived from the word “migrate,” which is a verb defined by Merriam-Webster as “to move from one country, place, or locality to another.” Plot twist: migration never ends. My parents moved from Jalisco, México to Chicago in 1987. They were dislocated from México by capitalism, and they arrived in Chicago just in time to be dislocated by capitalism. Question: is migration possible if there is no “other” land to arrive in. My work: to imagine. My family started migrating in 1987 and they never stopped. I was born mid-migration. I’ve made my home in that motion. Let me try again: I tried to become American, but America is toxic. I tried to become Mexican, but México is toxic. My work: to do more than reproduce the toxic stories I inherited and learned. In other words: just because it is art doesn’t mean it is inherently nonviolent. My work: to write poems that make my people feel safe, seen, or otherwise loved. My work: to make my enemies feel afraid, angry, or otherwise ignored. My people: my people. My enemies: capitalism. Susan Sontag: “victims are interested in the representation of their own 
sufferings.” Remix: survivors are interested in the representation of their own survival. My work: survival. Question: Why poems? Answer:

Another, longer, prose example is "Manifesto, or Ars Poetica #2" by Krista Franklin.

Ars Poetica

by Joseph Millar (who happens to be Dorianne Laux's husband)

Your friends tell you the writing
is good but you’re not actually buying it—
so much idle conversation, you think,
overheard through a hotel window
by a cab driver half asleep in the sun
instead of an ode or a psalm—

and waiting near the ER for your wife
who has just broken her arm,
reading a translation of Hafez or Tagore
can make you feel godless and small
since you’re not Neil Young or François Villon
though on such a day or night as this
you hear the footsteps along the sidewalk
and here comes the old shadow again
like the promise of late-season rain
which you hope will keep falling
into the earth, its rivers and deserts,
its alleys and streets
and the wild and wastrel ocean.

Essay on Craft

by Ocean Vuong (whose reading you can listen to here)

Because the butterfly’s yellow wing
flickering in black mud
was a word
stranded by its language.
Because no one else
was coming — & I ran
out of reasons.
So I gathered fistfuls
of  ash, dark as ink,
hammered them
into marrow, into
a skull thick
enough to keep
the gentle curse
of  dreams. Yes, I aimed
for mercy — 
but came only close
as building a cage
around the heart. Shutters
over the eyes. Yes,
I gave it hands
despite knowing
that to stretch that clay slab
into five blades of light,
I would go
too far. Because I, too,
needed a place
to hold me. So I dipped
my fingers back
into the fire, pried open
the lower face
until the wound widened
into a throat,
until every leaf shook silver
with that god
-awful scream
& I was done.
& it was human.

Finally, I refer you to a Ploughshares article that briefly explores three contemporary ars poeticas: Dana Levin's "Ars Poetica (cocoons)," Terrance Hayes's "Ars Poetica with Bacon," and Dorothea Lasky's "Ars Poetica." Frank O'Hara's "Why I Am Not a Painter" is another, slant example of an ars poetica.

Poetry Foundation has a "learning prompt" on the genre, which includes the following questions:

Why do you write? Who do you write for?
What do you write about?
What does writing do for you? What do you want writing to do for other people?
What do you find limiting about writing?
What does not show up in your poems or in “traditional poetry” that you wish did?
Where have you been? Where are you going?
What’s a story people should know about you?
What do you want?
What did you used to think? What do you think now?
What or who do you love? What or who do you detest?

Answer those, and you can write your own!