LOOK AT A THING: W.C. WILLIAMS, ROBINSON JEFFERS, CHARLES SIMIC
Russian Formalists have a word, “ostranenie,” which means constantly attempting to discover new ways of looking at everyday things. There are almost always two realities rubbing up against one another in every poem, whether they are specified or not, and whether they are used consciously or not. These are the internal realities of the poet—her thoughts, feelings, and imaginings—and the external reality—the circumstances of time, weather, season, landscape, the things of the world, Stevens’s Necessary Angel, everything that is not us. One way to enter the poem as a writer is to focus the poem’s attention outward onto a physical object. Poets have been doing this since the first words were broken into lines. So let’s start there.
Focus for a minute,…
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The American Poetry Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, November/December 2022