Art and Poetry

In the poet,W.S. Mervin's conversation on KUOW this morning, he mentioned that to create poetry, we need every bit of our knowledge. We have our knowledge, but the poem is not made of knowledge, it is made of what you don't know.( I am paraphrasing what I scribbled down on a scrap of paper that I found among the books and snack dishes scraped up off of the floor of my car). A poem comes partly our of the unknown, what isn't really there. It emerges.He says that if you already know everything it isn't a poem.

To me, Mervin's description of poetry is a lot like creating a painting. If you know too much, its boring. The painting is born from an image however fleeting, but has to be discovered as one creates the artwork.