And reading with someone whose work one likes--
as I very much like Aleida's--
is something, always something of a conversation.
So this is a poem called "Feeling and Form," which
is about a poet and a painter.
And is dedicated to a painter named Sandy Moore
and to the philosopher Susanne K. Langer, who
wrote about all the arts.
And some of you may who may know that the title of the poem,
"Feeling and Form" is also the title of one
of her books on aesthetics.
And like many poems, this is-- of mine anyway--
this is in the form of a kind of letter.
"Dear San-- Everybody doesn't write poetry.
A lot of people doodle profiles, write something they think
approximates poetry because nobody
taught them to read poetry.
Rhyming or trailing gerunds, clumps of words
straggle a page, unjustified.
Poetry?
It's not like talking, so it must be poetry.
Before they write, all children draw pictures grown-ups
teach them how not to draw.
Anyone learns/unlearns the craft of poetry too.
The fourth grader, who gets a neat likeness of Mom
in crayon's not unlike the woman who
sent you her Tone Poem, who'd like her admiration praised.
That isn't poetry, unless she did the work that makes it
like this, any, work, in outrage,
love, or liking an apple's October texture.
Write about anything-- I wish I could.
It's like the still lives you love--
you don't have to like apples to like Cezanne.
I do like words, which is why I make things out of words
and listen to their hints, resounding like skipping stones
radiating circles, drawing context from text,
the way I've watched you draw a pepper shaker on a table,
draw it again, once more, until it isn't like anything
but your idea of a drawing, like an idea of movement,
drawing its shape from sequence.
You write poetry.
I was a clever child who liked to draw, and did well,
but when I watch you draw, you rubber-face like I do when I
write--
chewed lip, cat-tongue, smiles, scowls
that go with right choices, perplexed, deliberate,
withdrawn, and worked play, conscious of the spaces
words or lines make as you make them, without words
for instant exegesis.
Molding words around the shape's analogous to drawing
these coffee cups in settings words describe,
but whose significance leaves words unsaid, because it's
drawn, because it's like not my blue mug, but inked lines.
Chosen words-- I couldn't write 'your white mug'--
collect words they're meant, or drawn to, make mental space.
Poetry extends beyond the page.
If you thought poetry was merely nicely ordered private words
for two eyes only, why would you say, 'Write me a letter,
damn it!'
This is a letter, right?
Wrong.
Form intimates fiction.
I could write 'me' as a mathematician, weaving words
implying 'you' a man, 16, a right-handed abstract
expressionist.
I'd write untruths, from which some other
'you' could draw odd inferences.
Though I don't, I write 'you,' and you're the Donor
on the right-hand panel, kneeling in sable kirtle.
Likely I'm the lady left of you, who'd
like to peer into your missal, where the writing--
legible Gothic-- lauds in Latin poetry, the Lady at the center.
Call her poetry, virtual space, or Bona Dea.
Poetry dovetails contradictions.
If I write a private 'you' a public discourse,
words tempered and stroked will draw you where you draw these
lines, and yours, convergent, made, unlike--
that likelihood draws words I write to poetry."