“The poem must resist the intelligence
Almost successfully.”
Wallace Stevens Man Carrying Things
As soon as a reader is convinced he or she knows what the poem is ‘about’ he or she should stop reading. The poem will add nothing fresh to the reader’s life. The poem will be old hat, yesterday’s news, another way of saying what has already been said. Of course, the previous sentences are not to be taken literally. But they make a necessary point. A poem’s first gift is puzzlement, like a baby looking at a pine cone.
What is this strange thing?
What of the world does this strangeness offer?
In an article on the Italian poet Eugenio Montale, Columbia University professor Luciano Rebay (1928–2014) wrote:
“Montale insists that no one would write poetry if his overriding aim were merely to be understandable. For him the aim of poetry is always to express something beyond the power of words to convey.”
The words of a poem have the power to throw us beyond words, into a place of unknowing where what we know fails and our ignorance demands a new knowing.
The first two lines from Wallace Stevens’ poem Man Carrying Things speak of a poem ‘resisting’ intelligence.
The poem must resist the intelligence
Almost successfully.
A poem does something to us. Startles. Confuses. Mystifies. Bores. Then, like any disquieting event, we try to figure out what just happened. In this regard a poem is like a Zen Koan which darkens the mind in order for a new light to become visible.
Here is a poem I wrote in honor of that experience.
I stumbled into this poem wh il e
loo
k i n g
for
a
ne
w
place
t
o be
lo s t
In the practice of poetry, one must be open to ambiguity, especially the poet. The poet does not fully understand the poem. The poet understands origins and intentions. But the poet does not know the mind of the reader, what life is there, what memory, what surfaces to either deflect or absorb the sense of the poem. So here goes a cautious attempt at unpacking this poem.
First, the shape and order of the poem on the page. It is out of whack, confusing. It will either put you off or invite you into the playful disorder. The presentation of the words supports their meaning.
Now, the meaning. One of the pleasant catastrophes that accompanies human life is the tyranny of the familiar. We get used to things, develop tried and true expectations, take things for granted. We settle into a world, usually less than perfect, but one that works for us. A world that makes enough sense for us to get by. Our philosophical assumptions become invisible. We would deny even having philosophical presuppositions. The way we see it is simply the way it is.
The only relief from the tyranny of the familiar is to deliberately look for a new place to be lost, or to recognize, that in the well-tended garden of what we know, is a vast and fertile ignorance.