A poet is
somebody who feels,
& who expresses his feelings
-through words.
This may sound easy. It isn't.
A lot of people think
or believe
or know
they feel-
but that is
thinking or believing or knowing;
not feeling.
And poetry is
feeling-
not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think
or believe or know,
but not a single human being can be taught
to feel.
Why?
Because whenever you think
or you believe or you know,
you're a lot of other people:
but the moment you feel,
you're nobody-
but-yourself-
in a world which is doing its best,
night and day,
to make you everybody else-
means to fight the hardest battle,
which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.
As for expressing
nobody-but-yourself-
in words,
that means working just a little harder
than anybody
who isn't a poet
can possibly imagine.
Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as using words
like somebody else.
We
all of us
do exactly this
nearly all of the time-
and whenever
We
do it,
We
are not
poets.
If,
at the end of your first ten or fifteen years
of fighting and working and feeling,
you find
you've written
one line
of one poem,
you'll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is:
do something easy,
like learning how to blow up the world-
unless you're not only willing,
but glad,
to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal?
It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so
I feel.
The above text has been reformatted from the original version by e.e. cummings, this passage was included in the introduction (xi-xii) for the book, "A Critical Path" by R. Buckminster Fuller.
Image of painting by Unknown Pandora's Box, via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
