"The Poet is a Creature" (A Diachronous Essay)

I think we can all agree THE POET IS A CREATURE.

"What sort of creature?" seems to be where we all have wildly divergent theories.

If a situation like this existed for biological taxonomists, we would see some scientists calling an elephant a (rather prodigious and thick-hided species of) butterfly, while others would have scientific proof that a walrus is, in fact, a perversely aquatic, girthsome and tusked example of a molerat.

Enjoy the thoughts of the ages upon THE CREATURE...



HE'S A TREE, HE'S A STONE, HE'S THE DIRT UNDER YOUR HEELS....

from "The Wind in the Poetry of Dámaso Alonso: The Spanish and Modern Myths"
The reader again perceives that the poet is a creature deeply rooted in the earth: "Arbol soy, piedra soy - el ancla echada. - / Destrenzame, / Destrenzalas. ...

--Graciela Palau de Nemes




HE'S A SLUG...

from THE CRITICAL ATTITUDE

The poet is a creature of his emotions, and seldom or never is his intellect very powerful or very steady.

...when, direfully, he appears but just a slug. He lives
if he has a chance, suspected, dreaded, applauded.
Then he disappears. He is covered with the wax of
oblivion. So it has been with, let us say, Hobbes,
Matthew Arnold, and Mr Ruskin, who being dead are
nearly as much forgotten as the inventor of the
safety bicycle.


---Ford Maddox Hueffer (1911)


HE'S DOING SOME SERIOUS-ASS INCARNATING...

MAZZANTI Giorgio:

Poetry is an event of words, not a flatus vocis; the poet is a creature of words (music and images, sound and form) around an incandescent/original moment (people and events) that arouses and almost demands those words (with that sound and in that form), as if saving a moment already escaped from time. Poetry is at the same time light from above (inspiration, daimon) and work of the poet who, under inspiration, without escaping the density of what exists, gives an image (the Word made flesh!) to things, people and events. This requires total, virginal receptiveness from the poet, requested to unite body and soul, to create and thus participate with his own fiat in the divine original creative Fiat. This poetic nucleus is a premonition and a prophecy of the Christian Event of the Word made flesh in the Virgin Woman, thanks to the Holy Spirit. Poetry is the word made flesh, the density of human beings, the time and the tragedy of living. The Logos (with the logoi spermatikoi/dispersed) wants to become terrestrial, flesh and body, in order to gather and save the dispersed bodies. This is also the work of authentic poetry (like the mystical) which becomes catholic, as extended as the whole so that all the bodies (St John of the Cross' viscera) may enter the divine; so that not even a crumb of the existing is lost. Thus, a very strict relationship between poetic word and eucharistic reality is unveiled. The poet also offers his wordlflesh for the life of the world and of human beings and prepares its verse, sound and form, while invoking (almost a liturgical epiclesis) the Spirit, without which (synergism) nothing is created and formed. But this is the nuptial mystery, and the work of poetry is a preparation of the Spouse's brilliant dress for the eternal Wedding with God. This dress also comes in a united (synergetic) way from the above and from the work of human beings. This is already a hymn and a praise.

Revue / Journal Title
Vivens homo ISSN 1123-5470
Source / Source
Congrès
Esperienza teologica, esperienza artistica. Convegno, Firenze , ITALIE (26/09/2000)
Expérience théologique, expérience artistique. Colloque, Florence , ITALIE (26/09/2000)
2001, vol. 12, no 1 (277 p.) (bibl.: ref. et notes dissem.), pp. 231-249



HE'S DE-MATERIALIZING, REALZING THAT HE HAS ONLY BEEN TOUCHING HIMSELF...

In "The Apprentice" the poet is still trying to reach through language what he knows can not be "reached" at all but nevertheless is "there"…"an overflowing splendor/is the only guest in this house," a house where the poet is "a creature of my own ironic labyrinth," and where what he wants to find are

stories on the shore of things
which can no longer be reached
by my favorite, too abstract words.

--Ghosts of the Palace of Blue Tiles: Los fantasmas del Palacio de los Azulejos by Jorge Fernández Granados, from a review by James Tipton.


HE'S A CREEP...

"Le poète est une créature solitaire, bizarre, apparemment cinglée, bruyante, souvent effrontément inadaptée d’une façon mondaine, mais repliée sur elle-même, sa maladie des sommets toujours présente à l’esprit."--Andrei Gritsman