sad parade

Poets and social media: a parade of narcissistic self-promotion.

poets refuse

Poets refuse to be discouraged.

poesy not poetry

Some poets are still writing ‘poesy’, not poetry.

one and done

The saddest thing I could say about the poet was that no poem of his/hers I’d read impelled me to read it again.

what words are

The essential nature of words is therefore neither exhausted by their present meaning, nor is their importance confined to their usefulness as transmitters of thoughts and ideas, but they express at the same time qualities which are not translatable into concepts—just as a melody which, though it may be associated with a conceptual meaning, cannot be described by words or by any other medium of expression. And it is just that irrational quality which stirs up our deepest feelings, elevates our innermost being, and makes it vibrate with others.

The magic which poetry exerts upon us, is due to this quality and the rhythm combined therewith. It is stronger than what the words convey objectively—stronger even than reason with all its logic, in which we believe so firmly...

If art can be called the re-creation and formal expression of reality through the medium of human experience, then the creation of language may be called the greatest achievement of art. Each word originally was a focus of energies, in which the transformation of reality into the vibrations of the human voicethe&mash;vital expression of the human soul—took place.

—Lama Angarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (Rider & Co., 1960), no translator given

few wins

One wishes more poets took to heart the Latin motto: "Non multa sed bona," not many, but good.

shadow workforce

America doesn’t know how many really good poets it has, doing fine work in the shadows, without public attention.

published poet

When someone refers to themselves as a ‘published poet’, their writing is likely at a very low level.

rough going

A gritty poetics.

burned library

Such was his erudition that when he died it felt like a great library had burned.

[Thinking of Borges]

let's get lost

From the start of this poem you could hear Chet singing from the backseat, Let’s Get Lost…

drawn to poetry

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.

—George Sand, The Devil's Pool (1846)

first to last

From the first line you couldn’t have foreseen the last.

innovative v. novel

Is the work innovative, an improvement of the art, or merely novel, different in a way that makes little difference to the art?

stay cool

Poet, learn to make no great claim.

break felt

Let the line break where it may, where it wants to break.

cards play themselves

That last line, lay it down like a full house or straight flush.

least made first

Their art so undervalued, poets act as though the world can’t do without their work.

higher speech

A poet of resplendent rhetoric.

[Thinking of Wallace Stevens]

flowers are few

Much that charms is small and fleeting
To the greatness of eternity.
The earth is a tiny shadow tottering on the edge of death;
The moon is a throb of splendor in the heart of the night;
And the stars are ephemera in the long gaze of God.
So grieve not
That your poems are the cool, fresh grass of a short summer;
The flowers are few.

—Pascal D’Angelo, last eight lines of “To Some Modern Poets,” Of Clouds and Mists: The Collected Poems (Sublunary Editions, 2024), with an introduction and Notes by Dennis Barone