Obie, Ars poetica, as I understand it, is poetry being aware of and discussing itself. It occurs when poetry is, in part or whole, the subject of the poem. It is self-reflective poetry.

In your poem, . . . Pearls, I consider it marvelously inventive, as poetic crossing, to move from SHIFT as leaver that moves the vehicle (standard-shift Wrangler) to the plane of SHIFT as ideas or mechanisms that move the poem. "What if the shift is so sharp it sank the ship," you write. The ship is the poem and the shift the tools (words, imagery, associations, tropes, etc.) that propel it. I interpret this as ars poetica, a poem being conscious of itself. I see this as the poetic struggle to, at some level, keep the poem coherent. The poem/poet is discussing its obligation to the reader. The reader must be able to follow the poem. Although the reader must make a serious commitment to engage the poem, to get it, the poet must be careful not to make creative choices that lose the reader on the poetic journey. In this section of Pearls, the poem is conscious of being a made thing. It is a literary construction, and it knows.

What you lift up hear, and the poem certainly acknowledges, is the universal concern of every poet, in every poem, to, in the poetic moment, maintain clarity. After all, the poet's job is not to obscure, but to make plain. To make us SEE--differently. All the best. Keith



Delicious and delightful; I thank you, Keith, for enlightenment. How very sensible and logical your explanation. It brings structure to mind. It produces emotional structure as well.

There is so much mental and emotional break down in our country and in our world, resulting in mayhem, resulting in murder which the structure your language and logic provide can, for an entire world, provide a stay against collapse.

My faith is in language. For intellect as well as for emotions, language acts as concrete and steel, creating beams and frames.

How very important structure is - the ability of things we make, to stand and to stand winds and tidal waves.

I feel lead to listen to recording I have at home of Shakespeare's sonnets. I need right now to hear or read the one about beauty's ability or inability to stand the onslaught of time and battering winds.

This sonnet I'm trying to recall, is one I really love. This is one I should learn by heart. Many thanks again, my friend. Forgive my running out and running on.
Obie.
p.s. a miracle, i've located it:

LXV

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O! none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.