Category: poetry

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If I Could Tell You

There is an Ancient Greek claim by a guy named Gorgias that nothing exists and even if it did exist no one could know it; and if anyone did know it, it could not be communicated.

Rather nihilistic, eh?

Gorgias was a Sophist and Sophists were traveling philosophers who for a fee dazzled you with their cleverness and snake-oil way with words. Sort of like politicians today.

W. H. Auden was a poet from our era (1907-1973) and poets are certainly not philosophers but here is an interesting poem about how we really don’t know anything about Life, and Time will only tell us, “I told you so.”

🙂 🙂 🙂

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The Red Wheelbarrow

This one-sentence poem by William Carlos Williams is an example of Imagist poetry, which is the kind of poetry that seeks to offer a precise depiction of . . . well, an image.

Archibald MacLeish said that an Imagist poem should not mean, but be. Forget about symbols and themes and deep meanings that cry out for close analysis.

Just give a poem like this room to breathe. Let it grab you by the hand and take you for a walk.

You might find that an Imagist poem, while it doesn’t “mean” anything that can be paraphrased or reduced to a soundbite, might nevertheless turn out to be quite a meaningful experience.

🙂 🙂 🙂