Wednesday, November 23, 2005

A Definition of Poetry

It is a sharply discharged whistle,
It is a cracking of squeezed ice-blocks,
It is night frosting leaves,
It is a duel of two nightingales.

(from Boris Pasternak's Definition of Poetry, 1917, translated by Edwin Morgan)

2 comments:

Heather O'Neill said...

Thanks for posting Pasternak's definition of poetry. So true.

It's these little things that cause us to take notice. Poetry is everywhere. Our eye is like a butterfly, or dragonfly, that rests upon the flower, with proboscis ready.

Heather O'Neill said...

Dragonflies don't have proboscis. Silly me.