#what a wise man
when remco campert said “poetry is an act of affirmation. i affirm that i live, that i do not live alone.”
i feel like adding that the reason this quote so appeals to me and encapsulates what i think about poetry is because i am convinced that poetry is not and can never be a product of mere solitude. even if you write to express loneliness, the feeling is derived by a certain lack of connection. even if you write only and completely for yourself, you are still writing within the world, you are still writing words that to even be able to weave inside a poem you have had to learn them from other people who have in turn also had to learn them from other people, words of which the precise connotation for you comes from a larger context in which you’ve heard then being used by those around you. your poetry is a product of so much history, of changes and little evolutions in language, of emotions caused by engaging with the world. and therefore, in poetry, you are never alone with the page. when you write a poem, you are of course expressing your own voice, but you are also expressing the voice of every person, tree, cloud, body of water, grief, animal and piece of art you have come across. poetry is a record of togetherness and of connection.
