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That were standing side by side on a place mat. (ibid.)Ĭoncluding the casual conversation, the persona employs a simile comparing the persona and the reader’s relationship with that of the salt and pepper shakers that have been together for quite a while and presumably, should have grown familiar with each other. The persona’s poetic subjects are common everyday stuff, something the reader can access easily as well: He starts by stating the same sensory perceptions available to the persona and the reader and that the main difference is merely the promptness of the persona to record and translate the persona’s own observations of the mundane into the lyrical details their existence seem to demand.Īnd mention with a pen (The Poetry Archive) In You, Reader, Collins imply the equivalence of the creative potential of the persona and the reader.
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And, if the poet succeeds in achieving this simple consciousness, this too will be transformed into an element in an immense activity, in a simple or complicated structure which constitutes the building of a community, the changing of the conditions which surround mankind, the handing over of mankind’s products: bread, truth, wine, dreams.” (Neruda, 1971) He does his majestic and unpretentious work of kneading the dough, consigning it to the oven, baking it in golden colours and handing us our daily bread as a duty of fellowship. “I have often maintained that the best poet is he who prepares our daily bread: the nearest baker who does not imagine himself to be a god. During the same occasion, Neruda publicly described how best he thinks a poet may fulfill his purpose: (PoemHunter)Ĭat’s Dream exemplifies what Pablo Neruda described as “simple consciousness” during his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. (PoemHunter)Īt the poem’s conclusion, the persona implores the cat to take care of the dreams of the community the persona belongs to and presents a curious paradox: the persona’s community possesses a “slumbering prowess” but apparently lacks the “relentless heart” the cat possesses.Īnd the great ruff of your tail. This is the path any poet of note consciously avoids: that of absurdity. Moreover, implicit in the poem is a third ultimately defining risk: that of being understood/misunderstood by the poet’s audience which has the potential of dealing a fatal blow to the poet’s credibility as an artist.
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30)Ĭonsequently, the creative process also entails the craft-defining risk of being wrong in the appreciation (i.e., the artist’s personal understanding) and the abstraction (i.e., the artist’s chosen medium and method) of Truth and Beauty: To perform this creative process is to exert uncommon commitment and focus, in the process risking a fall from a still higher vantage point that the author should always attempt to achieve: On the other hand, the poet needs to get the message across to the poet’s audience. Certainly a breathtaking spectacle to the audience who understands that the tightrope walker is risking a fall-even death-in the performance of the tightrope walker’s role:Ībove a sea of faces (Ferlinghetti, 1958, p. As the poem illustrates, both the tightrope walker and the poet take tremendous risks to get something across: the tightrope walker needs to maintain a tenuous balance to get across the entire length of the rope and reach the other side.