@fresco,
fresco wrote:
....>
Note for example how the word "green" evokes a dynamic interplay/linkage between "nature" and "inexperience"....or the word "fuse" evokes both "controller of force" and " amalgamation".
If you want to say something then use prose; but if you wish to suggest something then use poetry... Here is the thing... There is so much terrible poetry out there that people can read without the slightest grasp of meaning that they can only paint themselves by what they see... If we were all given the same scene to describe, then there are many ways, infinite ways to skin that particular cat... But human experience is infinite too, and so little of it can really be put into words, and that part we feel essential to communicate we cannot only evoke, but to an extent, express... I think the poem you offer evokes, but in the end expresses only a confusion of images...
If I may offer a story... I began writing poetry as the only sort of fiction I could afford, since Poetry is considered to have as little value as it does generally, and not specifically, to writer, and in rare instances, to audience... In fact, I wrote because a poem was like any other fiction but with the advantage that end was so close to beginning... But,as it turned out, it was a back door into philosophy... Because I soon discovered that to write I must learn about symbols, and to an extent, master them, and see symbolically... But that got me into magic because so much of magic is sympathetic, which is to say symbolic, and there I turned to an extent into psychology, but more into anthropology since so much of our fiction is really artifact of what humanity has always been, as our anti-heroes still are, and will seem to be...
But there is a point in ancient Greece where philosophy took on the myths and poems of mankind, and sought to critique them, but judged itself rather badly in the process.... And the philosophy of that age shone a light on the present moment, since if the object of fiction is not so much entertainment as truth then the truth of anthropology should not be in conflict with that of psychology or with math or physics; and what were they??? Because it seems as though it is possible for people to live in conflict with their very nature, and to destroy themselves, and yet, to do so as bravely and boldly as any hero of olden days... Is it possible to know the truth, or to speak the truth??? When we paint with the broad brush of poetry, and evoke, can we touch all to truth at the same moment; or should we only take for granted that there is such a thing as truth, and that all we do has some relation to truth???...
Here is what I would suggest: If your object is only to express yourself better in prose, then study poetry -for the economy of thought, as if you were Van Gogh expressing a field of flowers with a few in the foreground and a blast of color in the back ground... But Poetry is also life, and there is no getting away from the psychological quality of it, that when we describe it, we are also describing ourselves in the process as mankind has always been described by the quality of our art.. If that is what I would do with my time then my subject would be grand and beautiful, and as such, not really in need of poetry to make beautiful, nor in need of the lie so often seen in poetic form.. If I would paint a picture of myself with my choice of words then it would be of a man who knows all, at least enough of all to be certain of what is going on in life who in knowing all has the sense to dwell in the highs and lows, the hills and valleys of love with the most complete and beautiful person he can find...
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