1.24.2018

mind the gap

A poem complete in its conception is necessarily compromised in composition.

3 comments:

Joseph Hutchison said...

The notion of a "gap" is false. We write to find out what we think and feel. We field the "gap" in retrospect, to explain why the poem isn't as good as it might be.

JforJames said...

Point taken. Though many times in the throes of composing a poem, speaking for myself, I have inklings that the words I've written aren't getting it right. That usually happens when one is writing from intention. While other poets/poems don't operate that way. They're poems are about discovery, and not getting in the way of

Joseph Hutchison said...

I think I meant "feel," not "field," the gap. Rushing creates the gap, and one falls into it. One plunges through the jungle in a frenzy of discovery and ends up in the river, then a pile a shattered bones at the bottom of the rapids....