"Veni, Vidi, Vici"

Forgive me, my thought process sometimes lacks discipline. I have strange ideas. I'm a sort of armchair philosopher turned poet. This is a writer's blog, but I do not publish my finished work here. I post fragments, pieces, ideas; works in progress. I test out ideas that may or may not become more fully realized. I write flash fiction and poetry. I love generic transgression and experimental poetry. I write mostly about art and failed romance. When all else fails, I post things that inspire me.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

William Carlos Williams on Writing Poetry

William Carlos Williams
On poems as machines made out of words

To make two bold statements: There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small (or large) machine made out of words. When I say there's nothing sentimental about a poem, I mean that there can be no part that is redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship. But poetry is a machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy. As in all machines, its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical more than a literary character.