Light v Dark

Again, (somewhat) philosophical thoughts stemming from Stevens/Moore. Distilled: what is the role of the poet/poetry once a/the realization is made that there is no/maybe no First Idea/prototype/ideal, that there is no "true" universal in terms of objects/emotions, and that each poet is (really) creating fictions that a reader can consciously choose to engage with on whims?

This idea (or would it be these ideas?) stem from Stevens' "Ideas of Order at Key West," "The Snow Man," and "The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad"--"Ideas" is so "positive," I feel, because it seems to drive home the idea that potential alone is an argument for why poetry exists. Even though an attempt to paint reality is futile (as hinted by the allegory of the cave), these attempts provide inspiring moments, maybe in terms of the harmony of sounds only. Language, as concept, is inherently abstract--rules sorta/kinda agreed on to make communication possible. But you strip away meaning, and what do you have? The careful ordering of sounds. Consider operas--when people cry, is it over the (sometimes overwrought) writing, or the power that the voice alone, with careful training, can evoke?

The downside (as hinted by "Snow" and "Pharynx") is this highlight of representation--at it core, poems are just exercises in "nothing"--nothing is "truly" gained/lost by the poetic process, especially if one chooses to ignore a poem altogether. Essentially, poems do not "shed light" on human conditions; rather, they widen the nets of darkness that exist already in an uncertain (or possibly absurd) life.

The debate then has, as its basic premise, the following questions: is potential alone a reason for poetry? Is the notion of what the self, when properly motivated and "trained," can do enough? Is poetry, being very reductive, just an act of (sometimes) shared acts of solipsism that allows the self to transcend and be rewarded with immortality?

Some tough questions to wrestle with, especially an aesthetic like mine that values more the "real" in terms of visceral that can be elicited, not necessarily language games.

-Glenn