Read, Write Poem on its site featured a random quote by Sam Hamill: “Poetry exists as a body attempting communication.” Seems to me that the opposite of this also can be pleaded: poetry exists as communication attempting a body.
In fact, at least in my wordy world, poetry does not attempt. Tempt, maybe, as it should, but even when it doesn't whatever it does, it is communication. It seeks not it itself, or its image petrified in the body of an other, but seeks the Other ... Forget the fancy talk: the poetry Sam Hamill’s quote invokes for me is the life insurance salesman “attempting” to communicate the benefits of annuities. The poetry I am thinking of would like to ply you with beer and stories in the pub, and, if things go well and you both feel like it, heck, you might get all tempted and attempt to communicate via a romp in the hay.
But then, in the best manner of synchronicity, porous borders has just posted a provocative piece about “poet, poems, and videotape” that sheds a brighter and wider light on why tradition and poetry don’t really belong next to each other in a sentence, unless they have something to say to each other, something that makes a difference.
