What Words? An Exploration of Temporality and Language through Poetry

Abstract

Poetry is now, it contains the past and the present. There are two essential aspects of poetry that make it what it is: time and language. I have directed my attention towards these two aspects of poetry because I believe that poetry is immortal. Time is always running away from us; as we grow older, we find less and less time and wonder where it all went. But the language of poetry runs side by side with time; memories and words are what we’re left with in the end, and even they can be taken from us. There is yet another aspect of poetry that has intrigued me. Dream states, periods where consciousness is nothing, illuminate the creative process of poetry; our dreams instill us with a sense of mystery and magic, the same elements that are found in poetry. Dreams are another part of our reality; however, dreams are the antithesis of language and time—that is to say, the organic matter of dreams by nature has no time, and often dreams are indescribable. Much like poetry, their origins are still a mystery to us. Moreover, dreams unfold just as poems do: through images. Dreams and poems are based on real experience, but they are both pieces of fiction—this is not to say that they should be less valued though. Dreams possibly contain a glimpse of our eternal dream: the pursuit of immortality, which is contained in poetry.