Poetry and poësie

Photographik by De Waal Venter

What poetry is

There are Greek poets
who write Greek poetry
and Greek poets who write
English poetry,
there are Spanish poets,
Italian poets, Norwegian poets
who write Norwegian poems
and English poets who write
English poems, there are
Swedish poets who are Nobel laureates,
and Chilean poets who have won
a Nobel Prize, there are
Afrikaans poets who write Afrikaans poems
and also English poems,
there are Russian poets and Chinese poets
who write Chinese poems
and also English poems,
there are poets in all languages
and they write poems in all languages,
but none of them know what poetry really is
and why they actually write poetry;
I will tell you what poetry is:
it is the incomprehensible clarification
of actual reality,
and poets write it in an attempt
to understand their own thoughts …
with not much success.