Archive - Ars Poetica

what do we do when we are dying?

because you too are not so unlike these trees. it would be easy to say that this is because you are alive— but no, it is because you are also dying.

May 9 •

April 2024

can a poem save a life?

to suggest that a poem can save a life is to first imply an understanding of what constitutes a life that requires saving.

Apr 22 •

one might still offer even to the betrayed world a rose.

living seems to me to be something like this— less an act of figuring out 'how' and more an act of realising 'oh yes'.

Apr 8 •

March 2024

a rainbow does nothing.

but you can still be weak before it: a caretaker of silence, a connoisseur of stillness, a listener of wind.

Mar 26 •

distrust everything if you have to. but trust the hours. haven’t they carried you everywhere, up to now?

it’s the dream of all poems, and the text of all loves: Tenderness toward Existence.

Mar 12 •

because all this mess grief makes, it makes with love.

there are particular places things go when they are taken from us— the tip of our tongue and the back of our mind— where storage is easy, but retrieval…

Mar 1 •

February 2024

your one hundred valentines.

or: compensations for those who feel ill-prepared for the privileges of living

Feb 14 •

it's a dangerous thing to have a soul.

clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

Feb 6 •

January 2024

i thank you god for this most amazing ache which is natural which is infinite which is yes

i have read how Lord Byron on his death bed turned to a friend and said he had known but three happy hours during his whole existence.

Jan 28 •

the true life is elsewhere. we are not in the world.

but in order to see it, first you must imagine everything you can imagine. and then you must keep going.

Jan 18 •

poetry pocket: thank you, ross gay

you are the air of the now and gone, that says all you love will turn to dust, and will meet you there. do not raise your fist.

Jan 11 •

you are simply dizzy with freedom.

there is also a kind of magic that exists at edges and high places, at the borders and the spaces between things— a magic that demands a ceremony be…

Jan 8 •

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