We talked a little last week about poetry and rhythm, and it occurred to me afterward that poetry is an awful lot like jazz: there’s a tendency to want to get it, rather than simply experience it in the moment. And because we don’t always immediately understand what we see on the printed page, we walk away rather than engage with it. Plus, there’s a sense that poetry—again, much like jazz—is so rarefied as to deliberately thwart expression. Nonsense, say I! And I’ll prove it with a poem by Zbigniew Herbert.

From Study of the Object, Herbert’s third book of poems, originally published in 1961 (translated by Alissa Valles):

NOTHING SPECIAL

nothing special
boards paint
nails paste
paper string

mr artist
builds a world
not from atoms
but from remnants

forest of arden
from umbrella
ionian sea
from parkers quink

just as long as
his look is wise
just as long as
his hand is sure—

and presto the—world—

hooks of flowers
on needles of grass
clouds of wire
drawn out by wind

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(1)