A poem is a serious joke, a truth that has learned jujitsu.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that poetry balances seriousness with humor, embodying truths that adapt and defend themselves through cleverness.
William Staffordβs quote presents poetry as a unique blend of seriousness and playfulness, akin to a serious joke. In this metaphor, the 'truth' that poetry conveys is compared to jujitsu, which is a martial art that uses an opponent's force against them. This implies that poetry can take weighty truths and maneuver them in ways that make them more accessible or defensible, transforming complex emotions and ideas into something that can be both profound and enjoyable.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of poetry, one could use this quote to highlight how poems convey deep truths while still engaging the reader's sense of humor.
I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don't have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.
They miss the whisper that runs any day in your mind, "Who are you really, wanderer?"-- and the answer you have to give no matter how dark and cold the world around you is: "Maybe I'm a king.
A speech is something you say so as to distract attention from what you do not say.
The things you do not have to say make you rich. Saying things you do not have to say weakens your talk. Hearing things you do not need to hear dulls your hearing. And things you know before you hear them β those are you, those are why you are in the world.
So, the world happens twice--_x000D_ once what we see it as;_x000D_ second it legends itself_x000D_ deep, the way it is.
The earth says have a place, be what that place_x000D_ requires; hear the sound the birds imply_x000D_ and see as deep as ridges go behind_x000D_ each other.
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
Sure, they were simple desk lamps with only a minimal amount of movement, but you could immediately tell that Luxo Jr. was a baby, and that the big one was his mother. In that short little film, computer animation went from a novelty to a serious tool for filmmaking.
Every artist is linked to a mistake with which he has a particular intimate relation. There is the mistake of Homer, of Shakespeare β which is perhaps, for both, the fact of not existing. Every art draws its origin from an exceptional fault, every work is the implementation of this original fault, from which come to us a new light and a risky conception of plenitude.
We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making.
I try to have each book be an antidote to the one before.
I have always avoided photographing in the studio. A woman does not spend her life sitting or standing in front of a seamless white paper background. Although it makes my life more complicated, I prefer to take my camera out into the street... and places that are out of bounds for photographers have always had a special attraction for me.
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