<< It needs to come from "heart
knowledge" as opposed to pure "head knowledge". I
guess this is my personal manifesto. I think if a
poem has come from heart knowledge, it has more
capacity to sneak in below the reader's busy conscious
mind and really involve/affect them, give them that
precious sense of deep recognition >>
Kona,
I too like poems that "seem" to come from the heart.
That make evident a deep (emotional) commitment. I'm
not afraid to say I often admire even the overtly confessional...
the psyche's let-it-all-hang out airing of a Pandora's hamper
of dirty laundry. But I'm sure you realize it very hard to make
this distinction between heart and head. Where does, in
any single poem, one begin and the other leave off?
Many a Wallace Stevens poem might appear to be
an elaborate intellectual musing. But it could be different
emotional order (or odder ardor, if you will) that drives
the poem. Or a language-based intellection so pure,
so refined it may stir the hearts of readers, making
them beat faster or erratically like a kind of drug.
Finnegan
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