words or worlds

The dialectic of poetics: those poets who think poems are made of words and those poets who believe poems are worlds.

i think therefore iamb

He was beginning to think in iambs or else he was starting to hear his pulse inside his head.

to see clearly

…the greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion—all in one.

—John Ruskin, “Of Modern Landscape”

listen then think

A poem should make one listen, but then a poem should make one think.