"In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem"

Allen Tate’s assertion, “In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem,” presents a profound meditation on the autonomy and self-sufficiency of poetic language. Here, the poem becomes an entity with its own internal logic and consciousness, distinct from the intentions of the poet and the interpretations of the reader. According to Tate, both creator and interpreter are ultimately bound to the text itself. The authority of meaning does not reside with the poet’s personal motive or biography, nor is it fully determined by the subjective experiences or analysis of the audience; rather, it is the poem, in the precise configuration of its words, that becomes the sole legitimate vessel of meaning.

This perspective is rooted in the principles of New Criticism, a literary movement that emphasizes “the words on the page” and the close reading of the text as a self-contained artifact. In advancing this idea, Tate challenges the reader to confront the poem not as an external commentary or illustration, but as an original instance of experience and knowledge generated only in the creative act of language itself. Every attempt to abstract or paraphrase the poem inevitably results in something partial and diminished, since meaning is not transferable outside of the poem’s unique verbal arrangement.

The relationship between poet, reader, and poem is thus redefined; the poem does not serve simply as a vehicle for the transmission of external truths from poet to reader. Instead, poet and reader, in encountering the poem, are invited into a new way of knowing that is strictly circumscribed by the poem’s own linguistic universe. The words of the poem establish an exclusive realm—both a world and a mind—so that the act of reading becomes an engagement with the limits and possibilities of meaning entailed in the poem’s actual text, not a mere exercise in decoding intention or applying interpretation.