In another post, I was exploring a bit of why and how words matter and why I think it’s important to be as precise as possible. Now I was wondering if that won’t “kill” poetry and here’s my current take on that.
Poetry lives of the power of words, form our associations, from the pictures and emotions it paints on our mind and with that in our heart.
So as a poet isn’t necessarily a scientist it doesn’t really matter if you understand what they really meant or if you understand something that is only yours.
It sounds like there is some enormous beauty in this very personal experience with the poetry and we do now want to loose it. Here’s the magical bit: We won’t even if the words are really precise as there is still so much room for us to feel the words.
On the other hand with honouring the precision of words, the poet has an additional tool to send us on a magical journey. Because then the twists and associations that give life to the poem when it was written can be perceived by us as well.
So my conclusion is that precision adds to our experience and that it would take away from it is just a cheap and lazy excuse.
This is asking for another post on precise communication aka consent – I’ll get there 😀
The photo for this post is a bad photo of an amazing black and white photo I took with an ancient professional medium format analogue camera. I also developed the picture myself. The advertising agency I was working for as an intern had the crazy old fashioned idea that I should learn all the basics about the job they could teach me. As they still had all the equipment from pre-digital times, I got a pretty awesome education there. Much gratitude!