Composition
Composition
(from: A Theory for Art, xix)
When I compose my poetry I sense,
Within myself, a feeling of unrest:
A quiet, self-sustaining turbulence…
Control of what I think and write becomes
A shared experience – another brain
Seems to be integrated with my own
And offers me the rough ingredients
I need!. It helps me to manipulate
Thoughts into comprehensible designs.
And all the while I hear the pulsing notes
Of music harmonising with my moods,
Assisting me form waves of words which pour,
(Like raging cataracts or waterfalls),
Onto the page beneath my pencil-point.
Symphonic scores or operatic airs
Suffuse my working minds, (or else a flood
Of lyric songs or ballad-tunes, awash
With my invention’s own motifs), to match
The stream of composition. (I regret,
Now, that I did not persevere with my
Youthful attraction to musical modes
Since – had I then learned knowledge how to write
My thoughts upon the staves – now might the tones
Of melic, stimulating chords be heard
Along the air-waves of the Earth, to clothe
A fresh dimension on my poet’s voice,
And not be lost to fading memory).
For poetry is music, to my sense,
And verse which does not own some musical
Effect is scarcely poetry, for me.
