Only God, indeed, creates from nothingness. Thus, a poet who prides himself of sculpting away unneeded letters and words to produce a masterpiece sculpture of verse should not begin to think that he himself, as inventors, or God, is a creator. No. Inventors are different as that those that they conceive are used for the betterment or even pleasure of mankind. Verses practically cannot better the status of humanity. Moreso, it no longer gives pleasure since it is totally overshadowed by inventors' menacing inventions of television and other multimedia. And God as a creator, of course, is a far different inventor.
Inventors create out of natural resources and other ready materials, concocting them using their imagination, and daring to do what no other people did before. Poets rely on imagination alone — an imagination perceived from their ethereal vision.
It is therefore that both inventor and poet create their masterpieces out of something available, which is something material. But the poet is far more special from the former, in that he can create something out of the past, and from it. Prize the past: the counterclockwise tick... the death of friends... the letters re-opened, the diary re-read... for what is rune but rhythm of remembering?
Whereas a scientific idea that transfigurates itself into an invention is conceived through still time, whose goal is none other but to construct a preferable design for human enjoyment, poetry is conceived not only because the present time stiumlates the poet into writing action — the past stimulates more the poet's cogitations and interpretations of not only the present but as well as the future: "cultivate the past", says Federico Espino, for "only God creates from nothingess."
Some young poets today, who are fit to be called "pseudo-poets", have the nerve to write about death, angst, youthful rage, and the "void spot of life" — aside from the fact that they write terribly in this language. These writers create nothing but garbage! Besides, if they are going to write about these which are obviously the reactions and results of present-day events, it should be left to the work of essayists, chroniclers, and newspaper columnists. Very few poets write about anything from nothingness.
But as implicitly and explicitly exhorted by Espino, only God creates from nothingness. Those who try to do so are nothing.
Originally written on 13 July 2003. Follow me on Facebook, X, Instagram, and Threads.
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