'Poetry - a degree in consciousness'

 

 

“Poetry brings all possible experience to the same degree: a degree in the consciousness beyond which the consciousness itself cannot go.” – Laura Riding

A champion of free verse and feted as one of the world’s leading poets in the 1920s and 1930s, Riding was born in January 1901.   Also a critic, essayist, novelist and short story writer, she was well known for speaking out against Fascism and Nazism.   Her poems remain among those most studied and reviewed around the world, published in a dozen languages.

 

For Saturday’s Poem, here is Riding’s,

 

Yes and No

 

Across a continent imaginary
Because it cannot be discovered now
Upon this fully apprehended planet—
No more applicants considered,
Alas, alas—

Ran an animal unzoological,
Without a fate, without a fact,
Its private history intact
Against the travesty
Of an anatomy.

Not visible not invisible,
Removed by dayless night,
Did it ever fly its ground
Out of fancy into light,
Into space to replace
Its unwritable decease?

Ah, the minutes twinkle in and out
And in and out come and go
One by one, none by none,
What we know, what we don't know.