Poetry can supply a reader with a unique insight into the mentality of the poet. However, it is a very distinct experience when one can encounter a poets' view on what poetry is for the poet. To learn more about engineering, one should ask an engineer. To learn about the world of psychology, one should ask a psychologist. To gain insight into the world of poetry, one can read a poem. To gain insight into the world of the poem one must ask the poet. In this case, we will examine three poems on the nature of poetry itself. Three poets, Macleish, Moore and Ferlinghetti, each constructed poems about what poetry is to them.

Archibald Macleish gives a reader a very unique vision of what a poem is in Ars Poetica. Macleish leads the reader to believe that a poem can never be analyzed so to speak, because a poem does not mean anything. Though for Macleish, a good poem is timeless and lasting through the ages. The title, Ars Poetica, is Latin for the "art of poetry". Therein the poem itself becomes a reflexive depiction of poetry itself. The successive lines of what a poem "should be" are all connected to the tangible things of the world that are lasting

The third poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, writes in his poem Constantly Risking Absurdity on the same subject as Macleish and Moore but varies on the theme. In the poem, Ferlinghetti evokes a very stark image of a poet being like a tightrope walker. Ferlinghetti describes of how the poet as acrobat moves through delicate footwork and ballet-like positions. These "sleight-of-foot tricks" being analogous to the poet's ability choose the perfect words of perception. The risk of absurdity on behalf of the poet is alike the risk of falling that an acrobat faces on the tightrope. The "taut truth" found in the poet's experience must be balanced on otherwise absurdity becomes immanent. Ferlinghetti then comments with subtle irony on the relation between the poet and the poem. The acrobat-poet in Constantly Risking Absurdity makes a "supposed advance" towards the transcendental notion of Beauty. A tightrope is always strung horizontally from post-to-post. Each step that the poet makes will never get him closer to the higher position, "where Beauty stands and waits with gravity". Rather through "entrechat" (ballet posture), the poet through distinct word choice must wait to catch Beauty. Ferlinghetti finally treats his view on poetry with another ironic verse. The poet is then portrayed as "a little charleychaplin man" whom of course is mute in silent film and epitomizes farce.

Macleish, Moore and Ferlinghetti each differ on their views of the poem. Though their comments on poems are found in poems themselves. To the utmost, this ars grate artis method of investigating

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Approximate Word count = 1067
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)