Poetry demands utility, even if it is only to the (miserable?) existence of poets themselves. So what is this agency I have here given to this thing called “poetry”. Is it that through community and discourse things might acquire agency? Become agents? Are we shaped by chairs as much as we have shaped them? Is it that poets themselves just want to be useful, and project their own demand? (In which case, learn to cook or something.) Is it surrender to say that, yes, this thing, poetry, has agency and is making demands of me? Or is it just me making demands of poetry as if it should have to give me something useful to do? Or, put simply, I feel anxious about poetry and seek validation in the practice. I want poetry to embrace me from behind and take me in a barely consensual way. I think this will turn out all right if I just come quietly.
rWorld2 