With poetry, however, the rules don’t apply

An essay on weightlessness by Olivier Gilet

One of the most satisfying things about words is their black-and-whiteness, the neat, austere simplicity of their process. Letters on a page are so direct, so literal. The connection between writer and reader is intimate, personal and immediate: a moment of thought held, suspended, in a few marks, then reinvigorated. It has remained the same since cuneiform was pressed into wet clay with a reed. Words on a page have no backstage, no sleight of hand, nowhere to hide the workings. Words are what they say they are. You read a sentence and you can see how it was made; you can trace the thought. You know how it’s done — just as long as it’s prose.

With poetry, however, the rules don’t apply. It’s a fish of a very different colour. On the face of it, it looks the same; the letters, the words, are familiar. But it isn’t what it appears. By some internal magic, poetry hovers above the page, over the words. It happens outside the black-and-white lines, as if the writing were clairvoyant, calling spirit meanings, voices from beyond.

from Poetry is the cornerstone of civilisation | AA Gill

Photo by Olivier Gilet