Ars Poetica Poem by Archibald MacLeish
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
He all-time best poem ever written. The epitome of Imagist verse. Contains seven vignettes unparalleled in succinctness of expression. The reader must, of course, 'flesh out' the bare bones MacLeish lays out, but what a pleasure to reread, from the opening lines!
True following the lines of Formalism...a poem has its own soul...self...beginning..middle and end.....it has a life of its own laced with the qualities mentioned in this poem.....
I like the structure of this poem, it's a wonderful use of the Double Compound Metaphor that he speaks about in his book. Each stanza holds much.
'A poem should not mean/ But be'. I could not put it any better than that.
...A poem should not mean But be... asks for other poet's ideology.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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12/11/2024 6:25:29 PM # 1.0.0
I love this poem! It's one of my favourite ones that embodies the free spirit of poetry and how this freedom is ruined by scrupulous examination of its' verses.