A poem, as a manifestation of language and thus essentially dialogue, can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the –not always greatly hopeful-belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense too are under way: they are making toward something. Toward what? Toward something standing open, occupiable, perhaps toward an addressable Thou, toward an addressable reality.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that poetry serves as a means of communication, expressing deeper truths and emotions that may reach someone in the future.
Paul Celan's quote reflects on the nature of poetry as both a form of dialogue and a vessel for unexpressed thoughts and feelings. It compares poems to messages in a bottle, indicating that they are sent into the world with the hope they will connect with others, transcending time and space to find meaning in a receptive audience. The reference to an 'addressable Thou' highlights the desire for connection and understanding, suggesting that poetry seeks to engage with an open and responsive reality.
In practice
In a discussion on the power of poetry during a literary festival.
With a changing key, you unlock the house where the snow of what’s silenced drifts. Just like the blood that bursts from Your eye or mouth or ear, so your key changes. Changing your key changes the word That may drift with flakes. Just like the wind that rebuffs you, Clenched round your word is the snow.
Poetry is a sort of homecoming.
Each arrow you shoot off carries its own target into the decidedly secret tangle
Only truthful hands write true poems. I cannot see any basic difference between a handshake and a poem.
no one bears witness for the witness
in the air, there your root remains, there, in the air
A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him.
Writers have to have a knack for listening. I need to be able to hear what is being said to me by the voices I create.
When I decided to write 'The God of Small Things', I had been working in cinema. It was almost a decision to downshift from there. I thought that 300 people would read it. But it created a platform of trust.
If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise, you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.
I'm always interested in the spooky repurposing of everyday things.
I like to look at pictures, all kinds. And all those things you absorb come out subconsciously one way or another. You'll be taking photographs and suddenly know that you have resources from having looked at a lot of them before. There is no way you can avoid this. But this kind of subconscious influence is good, and it certainly can work for one. In fact, the more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.
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