"poetry is a kind of lying"

AUTOPSYCHOGRAPHY

The poet is a fake. He
Fakes it so completely,
He even fakes he’s suffering
The pain he’s really feeling.

And they who read his writing
Fully feel while reading
Not that pain of his that’s double,
But theirs, completely fictional.

So on its tracks goes round and round,
To entertain the reason,
That wound-up little train
We call the heart of man.

Pessoa, trans. Honig

~

POETRY IS A KIND OF LYING

Poetry is a kind of lying,
necessarily. To profit the poet
in beauty. But also in
that truth may be told only so.

Those who, admirably, refuse
to falsify (as those who will not
risk pretensions) are excluded
from saying even so much.

Degas said he didn’t paint
what he saw, but what
would enable them to see
the thing he had.

Jack Gilbert