Eleven Aphoritters

The relationship between "the poem" and "poetry" is a subset of the e pluribus unum problem: what does the cell know of the body?

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The cell knows nothing of the body in which it manifests, and yet it carries the whole of that body within the double helix that is its soul.

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The speculation that our reason for being is to act as a deluxe vehicle for our DNA has merit -- from the point of view of our DNA.

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The speculation that the poem exists to further the cause of poetry has merit -- from the unthinkably unhuman point of view of Poetry itself.

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The nebulous disappointment many people feel when encountering a poem stems from the poem's being itself, and not Poetry.

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When I meet you, am I disappointed that you are not America, or Humanity, or God, or a spiral nebula?

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The poem stands tenuously at the heart of a storm, both upholding and opposing Poetry.

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The power of a poem declines as the storm around it abates; hence the receding power of many poems over time.

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Over the human individual there breaks an unabating cyclone of ghosts.

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The existence of the category "ghost" is indicative of a deep ambivalence in culture toward memory.

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The poem is part of the technology of memory; Poetry is the machine at the heart of the ghost.