Poetry Thursday: Interview with a Poet

In Bernadette Hall's book, "The Ponies", I came across a poem with the following lines:

Did I tell you that since her death the only people
I can bear to read are the beautiful Czechs?

It must be their weight and their sardonic wit

This led me to seek out the Czechs. I am currently reading a book of poems by Miroslav Holub, "Notes of a Clay Pigeon". In it I found the following poem. This is not quite what Dana and Liz had in mind, no doubt, when they asked us to write a letter to a poet, but it seemed similar to me. I had plans originally to write a poem of my own on the theme, but I have been busy with the daily prompts for NaPoWriMo. So if you would like to read some of my own poetry (rough first drafts anyway - one a day is hard), just check out my other daily posts.

Interview with a Poet

You are a poet? Yes, I am.
How do you know?
I have written a poem.
When you wrote the poem, it means you were a poet. But now?
I shall write another poem some day.
Then you may again be a poet. But how will you know that it
really is a poem?
It will be just like the last one.

In that case it will certainly not be a poem. A poem exists
only once - it cannot be the same again.
I mean it will be just as good.

But you cannot mean that. The goodness of a poem exists only
once and does not depend on you but on circumstances.
I imagine the circumstances will be the same.

If that is your opinion, you never were a poet and never will
be. Why then do you think you are a poet?
Well, I really don't know...
But who are you?

- Miroslav Holub

More Poetry Thursday here