‘Poetry, like music, is to be heard…Prose exists to convey meaning, and no meaning such as prose conveys can be expressed as well in poetry. That is not poetry’s business.’ – Basil Bunting* –
The ‘Today’ programme on Radio 4 has, every morning this week, been featuring readings (by the poets) of the poems which have been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9361000/9361532.stm
I’ve been enjoying these, but I find it infuriating to hear a poem then and not be able to read it. I need to see poetry written down to feel I’ve experienced it and can more fully understand it. I don’t deny the importance of the sounds, the rhythm and so on, and often do read poetry out loud to myself – but to only hear it seems too fleeting, like catching a glimpse of something you can’t then lay your hands on.
It seems true to me that the meaning which is expressed in a poem is different to the meaning of a piece of prose. If prose is a flower, then poetry is the essential oil which has been distilled from the petals: concentrated and potent. A good poem is an experience, it impresses itself on us – it is what it is and it can’t be reduced or summarised without detracting from its meaning and effect. Perhaps this is what Archibald MacLeish* means when he says:
‘A poem should not mean
But be.’
It is meaning and form combined which make the irreducible poem, but, in my opinion at least, it is still meaning, and meaning – or at the very least conveying - is very much a part of poetry even if the meaning is something that cannot be fully articulated, only felt.
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*quoted in the Introduction to Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times ed. Neil Astley
* source as above