What Does it Mean?

Poetikat referred me to a new blog recently, Robert Frost's Banjo.
He had an excellent post on the meaning of poetry. I've dabbled in
a bit of poetry myself and I've heard more than once, after reading
one of my pieces, "But what does it mean?" This always annoys me
a bit and I wonder why the reader can't just enjoy the grouping of
the words and the textures of the sounds. Don't you think the
reader should just relax in the poem's mystery without necessarily
completely understanding the poet's intent?

There is an ancient Chinese Proverb that says, "A bird sings not
because he has an answer, but because he has a song."


A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown--

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind--

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea--

A poem should not mean
But be.


Ars Poetica, Archibald Macleish, 1926

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artwork: A Mere Excursion, Flickr