Poiesis: The act of Making (from the Greek, poiein); to bring forth into being something that was non-existent; to transform; whence arises the word ‘poetry’.
Medical terminology uses poiesis as a suffix to denote the making or formation of tissues/cells in the body (e.g. hematopoiesis)
In Art, poiesis is the creative act, Heidegger’s emergence from the void, that threshold trembling into form. Plato vs. Aristotle: Did poiesis beget physis? Was poiesis begotten of physis?
What interests me is not just the thing made but the process of making. Creation can be thought of as a series of decisions. It is the deliberate embodiment of meaning in Form which we call Art. This page is devoted to exploring that process.
Why we need the Lyric
-The lyric is meant to be sung. With or without instrumentation it is inseparable from music, the purpose of which is to express the inexpressible. -The lyric is language compressed. All poetry is a condensation of language; the lyric exists at the event horizon between what can be said and silence. -The lyric exerts tensile…
Re-birth
October is my birth month and it coincides with a time of great change in my life. This has led to some rumination on transformation and metamorphosis: The creative process is inherently destructive. The death of insects, plants and animals is the process of release–of bound matter losing hold upon complex structures and returning to…
Near is, and difficult to grasp
April is National Poetry Month. I woke up on April 2nd and that was my first thought. My second thought was, what poem should I feature in my newsletter? Without prompting, Hölderlin’s Patmos came to mind. Hölderlin??? I hadn’t read him in years. I tried to think of another poem but could not shake Patmos…