Words are the premise upon which poetry is based. It is what words are, or rather it is what the poet conceives the purpose and meaning of these fractured fragments of language to be, that informs the essence of his or her poetry. This is the wisdom (bias) and architecture that will forever contain and constrain the words, the claustrophobia of the page. Thus, if the poet believes words to be the elements of truth, there will be (always) an arrogance in his/her constructions. If s/he sees words as essentially decorative, the assembly of them will be motivated by the music of language rather than meaning.
The history of poetry is the history of assumptions about what language is, what language is for. When the purpose purports to be the enlightenment of the reader there is an inherent faith that words have a usefulness that is rooted in the eternal. The very notion that there exist fixed meanings for words and that by juxtaposition of this meaning with that meaning and these meanings with another some Polaris might be revealed is a comforting delusion.
But every poet knows--even with his or her very personal reverence for language--that s/he will invariably be "misunderstood." Misunderstanding, and its companion alienation, are symptoms of the ambition and impossibility at the center of the true-believer's communication.
By contrast, when words are afforded their fullness (and their emptiness)--each one as complex and delicate as a snowflake, as unique--they become impressionistic in their intention instead of didactic. The quality of poetry in this context is similar to the visual impact of a collage. The play of symbols creates the possibility of ideas, ideas that solidify in the mind of the individual rather than in the construction on the page. The "message" is independent of the singularity that would be accessed by "understanding"; the locus of meaning is thus attached to the viewer, the reader, the hearer, the receiver and not to the artist, the writer or the composer.
Since this to the post-modern mind reflects the actual ambivalence of meaning, the primary, secondary, and tertiary meanings as conceived by the creator are comfortably unclear. A post-modern set of eyes does not look for what dwells between the lines, what is hidden there. Rather s/he looks for only what resonates personally. S/he sees where the words and symbols intersect with her/his vocabulary. These contacts in meaning are enough. They are better that the delusion of "something to get" and "getting that something"....
