Wednesday, September 05, 2018
The Curse of the Poet
By: Donovan Baldwin
In an essay on the pleasure of painting, William Hazlitt says, "The painter not only takes a delight in nature, he has a new and exquisite source of pleasure opened to him in the study and contemplation of works of art..." and goes on to give an example of a painter spending a pleasant time contemplating not only art, but, life, nature, and the world about.
Much the same happens to the poet.
While each of us so afflicted react in our own particular and special way, I feel fairly sure that we are much the same in that we never look again at even the smallest piece of trash or the most spectacular display of nature the same way.
Commonplace things lose their commonality and, instead become causes of cantos. Wondering and wandering becomes a way of life with the goal being the coming of the words which, like the statue within the stone, revealed by the blows of the sculptor, will be pulled forth into this world and made to represent more than what the dictionary ever intended.
The poet is condemned to evermore find a poem in everything, much to the dismay and dismissal of most of the rest of the world.
In an essay on the pleasure of painting, William Hazlitt says, "The painter not only takes a delight in nature, he has a new and exquisite source of pleasure opened to him in the study and contemplation of works of art..." and goes on to give an example of a painter spending a pleasant time contemplating not only art, but, life, nature, and the world about.
Much the same happens to the poet.
While each of us so afflicted react in our own particular and special way, I feel fairly sure that we are much the same in that we never look again at even the smallest piece of trash or the most spectacular display of nature the same way.
Commonplace things lose their commonality and, instead become causes of cantos. Wondering and wandering becomes a way of life with the goal being the coming of the words which, like the statue within the stone, revealed by the blows of the sculptor, will be pulled forth into this world and made to represent more than what the dictionary ever intended.
The poet is condemned to evermore find a poem in everything, much to the dismay and dismissal of most of the rest of the world.
Labels: art, artist, donovan baldwin, poem, poet, William Hazlitt
# posted by Donovan Baldwin @ 7:49 PM 
