living document

A poem is a living document.

thrill ride

The poem was an amusement park of language thrill rides.

anything not everything

Anything can be a poem but not everything becomes a poem.

one stanza

One stanza can stand for and hold up an entire poem.

language unleashed

The poem being a force of language.

minor bang

A haiku is a pocket universe.

kinds of containers

A poem to me is a container whether it be benign like a water pitcher or dangerous like a pipe bomb.

slow release

A poem as a slow-release potion.

the subject is

 The poem is the subject of the poem.

uneasy at rest

A poem is uneasy even at rest.

distillate

The poem as distilled prose.

obviously magnificent

You can’t explain the poem: you can’t say what it’s about, you can’t even make a claim for it as a poem, yet it manifests itself in the space of the page and declares itself magnificent.

poem as brick

A poem made from mutable clay of human existence but solid as brick.

locates in space

Like a bat, the poem echolocates in space.

signs and wonders

Mostly a poem is signs and wonders.

filmic language

The poem as film made language.

pure presence

a poem is something in the midst of a white plane
fenced in by itself and enclosed by the surface of its lines.
although it has forgotten where and how it came to be,
it is no lost soul
[…]
a pure presence
each poem is a shell around a kernel possibly invented
each poem is a translation of the one poem that exists only in translation
each poem is its own condition
a poem is that which declares itself to be a poem

—Jutta Schutting, the start and ending of “Poems,” from In der Sprache der Inseln, Contemporary Austrian Poetry (Fairleigh Dickinson U. Press, 1986), edited and translated by Beth Bjorklund

stutter on

But every poem is no more than a stutter
beneath the endless stutter of the stars.

—Roberto Juarroz, Vertical Poetry: Last Poems (White Pine Press, 2011), translation by Mary Crow

radio left on

Most poems will be like a radio left on in a vacant room, a device talking into space.

stanza thus

A good stanza from almost any poem could stand alone as a poem.