Ars Poetica, by Archibald MacLeish

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric from Pexels

Continuing my new Monday tradition of posting a poem that has influenced my own poetry writing, here is a poem by Archibald MacLeish. I have loved this poem for years and have tried to emulate its style before, but MacLeish writes in a way that I can’t seem to replicate.

Ars Poetica

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit,

Dumb

As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

                         *

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.

                         *

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean

But be.

~H