“Poetry is the baby born when language falls madly in love with life.”
Charles Olson
A grunt,
a moan,
a syllable,
a sound reaching beyond a finger pointing to the moon.
Few things are more exciting than the birth of a word.
Words have been around for a long time. Language can wear out. Words get bored building boxes in which to store things. They tire of hearing themselves repeated in ways that maintain the status quo. Words exhaust themselves trying to maintain their sharp edge of distinction. ‘Jealousy’ distinct from ‘envy’, for instance. ‘Two’ from ‘to’ from ‘too’. ‘Effect’ not the twin of ‘affect‘. Words fatigue themselves saying the same old thing and trying to act excited about it.
Is there a thought that needs a word?
Is there a particular shade of experience that languishes without a name?
Is there a future for language that goes beyond logic to life?
-Words want to live as wrecking balls breaking things apart.
-Words want to live as cryptic puzzles.
-Words long to live as the aroma of roses and dung.
-Words desire to sound and mean something never before spoken.
-Words crave being cradled in the mouth of a football game announcer
when he aptly names the first instance of a maneuver.
-Words want to escape from paragraphs and live lyrically on the run.
Without poets language would be limited to the role of message delivery.
Each word would be a freight car designed to transport one discrete thought (think coal car or oil tanker) from one mind to another. Words yearn to carry a more nuanced cargo. Words want to live as explorers and creators. Verbs want to marry a hundred nouns and spawn a thousand metaphors and neologisms.
The greatest fear of language is the monotony of rationality.
Language will not be deprived of play.
Language will not be deprived of glory.
Language dares to hope for a fulfilling future.
The poet’s task is to bring hope to language.
