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Poets who are not critics, you should take note.
The poem worthy of itself is writing critically of what it just wrote.
If your poem hates criticism, your poem does not denote,
But sinks to muddy death in pure self-satisfaction,
Seeking a reader’s pitiful, gullible, second-hand, reaction,
The flow of inspiration blocked by thick, leafy redaction.
You who believe criticism of poetry is hate,
Safely meander towards nothing, pleasing obscurity your obscure fate.
The next line is always waiting for you—but you couldn’t wait,
Hurrying to illustrate your case—a clumsily played card,
Your metaphors for air immediately turning stale and hard;
The reader falls into reading shard upon shard,
The little meaning of this standing for the tepid meaning of that,
In the most obvious gambit of resemblances,
Or, if you are sophisticated, metaphors, perhaps, which don’t quite fit,
To win the reader—but the poem? You don’t care about it.
You pursued a poem without the poem in mind.
You wrote only to them, thinking your poem, like you, could be kind, or unkind.
