24 February 2004. There's nothing wrong with poems as observations of life, but I prefer poems as life. Not that an observation of life cannot, through a precise misuse of language, exceed to life--as generally happens in the poems of Stevens. A superior poem, though, will use whatever observations of life it makes as means toward life, not as its reason for existence. Let prose tell us what life is all about. It can do so much more efficiently that poetry can.

That's all I feel like saying today. Just the old, "a poem should not mean, but be," really. To make up for the shortness of my entry, though, here's a revision I just did of the mathemaku I made a few days ago. I didn't like its background color, so I changed it. I now like its background color, but think there should be more going on in the background. I've also started seeing how to do 3-dimensionality. Consequently, those of my mathemaku like this one suddenly seem stupidly flat. Oh, well, I consider the new version an improvement on the old, and continue to be gaining greater skill with Paint Shop.