this altar of certitude

It would be amiss to not list the poem from which this blog's title springs. Of all his dictums, MacLeish's truest surely is that a poem should be equal to: not true. For of this melancholy demeanor a poem well stands, outside of fear and favor, the proper art of poetry.

ARS POETICA

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds


A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs


A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be

            — Archibald MacLeish