To write about writing. To create poetry about poetry. Therein to find the knowing that can help us identify the muse and her audience.

An ars poetica.

Archibald MacLeish, in his best-known work, ends with the words "a poem should not mean, but be." Within its "being" the work allows and grants a reader the ability to find a subjective interpretation that can open them to their own creativity, their own well-spring. In an author's sharing of their inspirit source we find a flowing fountain that is beautiful to behold but, perhaps, not to be coveted as our own. There is a mystical quality to the writing of poetry that has been honored through the centuries by kings, queens, philosophers, those of religious orders, and by the meek and the humble. Poetry can transform the mundane into a divine moment of enlightenment, understanding, warmth. In the reading of poetry there is profound reward in the recognition of the nod of a head among your audience.

Billy Collins (poet laureate from 2001 to 2003) in his poem "Monday" talks of the poet as viewing "being" through a window, witness to all that exists beyond the frame. It's the job of the poet, he says, to be at their window. Metaphorically, windows represent opportunities to see things we may miss without the framing, without the focus our mind derives from the frame. In every scene, there is source and inspiration.

The poet may look at the ordinary; yet he witnesses the extraordinary and writes the experience of living within that moment.

While each will identify source in their own way, without the "seeing", the "hearing", the "feeling", the "knowing", inspiration would lay dormant, unused, unopened, ungifted to those who may find their own key inside poetry.

Equipoise

Softly, sweetly setting starsun
Steals away when the day is done
Quickly, quantum queries quiet
Quasar's gleam does not deny it

Luminous, lucid, limpid light
Lifts the mind reveals innersight
Mystical, magic, mirthful moon
Morning star shimmers slumber's cocoon

Vernal, vibes-versify Venus
Vision moves distance between us
Devotion's docent; duet's dove
Destiny bound by light and love

Learn more about this author, Rene Schwiesow.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Identifying the source and target of poetic inspiration?
We want to hear your view. Write now!