In defence of poesy 2011: Edward Carson

Edward Carson is the author of the collections Scenes and Taking Shape. He has twice won the E.J. Pratt Poetry Award.

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The Way a Poem Knows

Something about the way a poem knows,
something that keeps us reaching into it

from a place of dreaming not unlike this.
The poem calls and sets a path in the dark

and lights fields of our belief. The poem sees
the truth in the telling is not revealed in what

it doesn’t know, but in finding itself
released like a stream from its knowing.

Something about the way a poem finds
its place in our hearts, something that finds

the truth of what is meant to be but harder
still to say. Something about a poem that asks

and answers, setting loose the slow riddle
of its voice, something it freely confesses

to knowing, like the clear thread of this portrait
about to discover the way a poem finds its end.