2.05.2014

negative space

Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization. Its knowledges are all negative and, therefore, more positive than any knowledge. Nothing that can be said about it in words is worth saying.

—A. R. Ammons, “A Poem Is a Walk,” Claims for Poetry (U. of Michigan Press, 1983), ed. Donald Hall, 8.

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