"What Are Poets For?"

Abstract

PoetryI, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond allthis fiddle.Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt it, one discovers init after all, a place genuine.Hands that can grasp, eyesthat can dilate, hair that can riseif it must, these things are important not because ahigh-sounding interpretation can be put upon them butbecausethey areuseful. When they become so derivative as to becomeunintelligible,the same thing may be said all of us, that wedo not admire whatwe cannot understand: batholding on upside down or quest of something toeat, elephants pushing, a wild horse taking a roll, a tireless wolfundera tree, immovable critic twitching his skin like a horse thatfeels aflea, base-ball fan, statistician-nor is it validto discriminate against 'business documents andschool-books'; all these phenomena are important. One mustmake a distinctionhowever: when dragged into prominence by half poets, theresult is not poetry,nor till poets among us can be'literalists of imagination'-aboveinsolence and triviality and can presentfor inspection, 'imaginary gardens with real toads them',shallwe haveit. In meantime, if you demand on one hand,the raw material of poetry inall its rawness andthat which is on other handgenuine, you are interested poetry.(M. Moore)1. Wozu Dichter durftiger Zeit?Wozu Dichter durftiger Zeit? asks Holderlin his 1800-1801 elegy Brot und Wein. The very fact that poet finds himself posing question already betrays historical predicament of modernity which poetic activity and poetic language are no longer, as ancient Greek naturally and immediately flowing from things themselves, from proximity of gods to-and even unity with-the natural and human world (Brot und Wein, 5). In fact, poet self-doubtingly raises question is poet feels that as a poet he has too late. The ancient times belong to a long-gone, irretrievable past, gods are once and all removed from disillusioned human and if they have not entirely disappeared they do live in another world, poet is alone (ohne Genossen). In fracture that is modernity poet's question arises: why then and be a poet times? Poets seem to be the holy priests of god's wine (Weingott), who wandered from land to land holy night (Brot und Wein, 7). This is poet's friend Heinze suggests. Poets are those mortals pursue fugitive gods wherever this pursuit takes them: a chase from land to land but always darkness of night-albeit a holy one.1Holderlin's question is raised again 1946 by Heidegger. Other, indeed much darker and much more troubled times hover over question at this juncture. Now interrogation is further removed from poet. In fact, it does not come from poet himself but from philosopher. If question still expresses a (self-) doubt it is doubt of philosopher now turns to poet a possible salvation, possibility that a new beginning of philosophical thinking itself be revealed to him by poet. This is, effect, way which Holderlin's poetry has opened path Heidegger's new way of philosophizing beyond strictures of metaphysics and contemporary phenomenology. It follows that now question does not regard only what for (wozu) of poetry but also and first place identification of those poets whom question may be seen to concern (let's name then poets in-and of-our destitute time, poets may save us; is Rilke one of them, and way, namely, how is his poetry related to destitution of time? …