A poet has confidence in his or her own ignorance.
What could that possibly mean?
A poet is an explorer into language.
What potential does language have to reveal? The poet wants to know.
The poet’s tools for exploration are words.
What can words accomplish? The poet wants to know.
But in order to learn, you must be confident that what you are ignorant of is worth knowing. Therefore, a poet must be confident of his or her own ignorance.
Poets do not ignore their ignorance.
They move toward it, through it, over the horizon of not knowing into fresh ignorance. Ignorance is an important dimension of the poetic life. Poets share this trait with scientists. Poets and scientists both want to know, but not the same things in the same way. Scientists search for veritas – that which can be verified through experiment. Poets search for alethia – that which is revealed through experience.
All explorers must be confident of their ignorance, otherwise they would never leave home, never abandon convention for high adventure of going into the unknown. It is the not knowing that lures the poet into the wilderness of unlived life. In this sense – ignorance is bliss.
The poet says, I have discovered . . . this. How do I name it? How do I translate this discovery into a language-experience? How do I call it back into my own remembrance? How do I offer the experience to others?
You do not have to write poetry to live a poetic life. But if you are going to experience your human moment fully, you must be aware of the life that lies beyond clarity, the blurry place that requires focus, the never before present that calls forth articulation.
You must tell yourself.
You may tell others.
veritas (L.) truth – substantiated
alethia (G.) truth – disclosed