How the Poem Thinks

Abstract

Ever since Plato's condemnation of the poets who did not deserve a place in his ideal city poetry has, in areas of the Western world, drawn suspicion as for its ability to convey the "truth." Philosophy, then, was thought to be a better candidate assuming that the truth in question could only be "discursive" as opposed to "poetic." In the West, the tension between poetry and philosophy reached a quasi-chiasmatic peak with modernism, a period during which the poem asserted in the most radical way its own mode of thinking. Alain Badiou in his Que pense le poème? (2016) qualifies the singularity of poetic thought in terms of "musical silence." Yet, in spite of the depth and beauty of the image, the poem falls short of being considered as philosophical thought proper. By moving away from a (Western) conception of philosophy centred on logos as method, the poem may conceivably reveal a profoundly philosophical nature. Such is the case with the poetic prose of French contemporary writer Christian Bobin. Starting from Badiou's conception of "musical silence" in poetry this essay reflects on the extent to which emptitude at work in Bobin amounts to a uniquely philosophical mode of thinking.