STATE OF AMERICAN WRITING
Experiment in form.
So, too, experiment in form is one of the
constants of the spirit. Much of what has been said about subjects
and words applies to form. There is, however, a usage with respect
to form as
if
form in poetry was a derivative of plastic shape. The
tendency to visualize form is illustrated by the way a reference to
form becomes a reference to the appearance of the poem on the page
as in the case of a poem in the shape of a pear, say, or a poem with–
out any shape at all. Such trivialities show that the record of a man's
experience in the modern world is not a derivative of plastic shape.
Modem poetry is not a privilege of heteroclites. Poetic form in its
proper sense is a question of what appears within the poem itself. It
seems .worth while to isolate this because it is always form in its
inimical senses that destroys poetry. By inimical senses one means the
trivialities. By appearance within the poem itself one means the things
created and existing there. The trivialities matter little today and most
people concede that poetic fmm is not a question of literary mode.
About poetty.
It is not necessary to answer the last question
relating to the fate of culture in order to consider the present position
of poetry. That question implies that an understanding of the basic
meaning of literary effort involves the fate of culture. Certainly a
critical concern with poetry involves an understanding of the basic
meaning of literary effort. Perhaps the present interest in the analysis ·
and
interpretation of poetry is in itself an attempt to get at the basic
meaning of literary effort.
It seems that poetic order is potentially as significant as philo–
sophic order. Accordingly, it is natural to project the idea of a theory
of poetry that would be pretty much the same thing as a theory of
the world based on a coordination of the poetic aspects of the world.
Such an idea completely changes the significance of poetry. It does
what poetry itself does, that is to say, it leads to a fresh conception
of the world. The sense of this latent significance exists. Many sen–
sitive readers of poetry, without being mystics or romantics or meta–
physicians, feel that there probably is available in reality something
accessible through a theory of poetry which would make a profound
difference in our sense of the world. The interest in the analysis and
interpretation of poetry is the same thing as an interest in poetry
itself. For that reason it is not possible to speak of .an enlarged audience
for the analysis and interpretation of poetry and at the same time
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