"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash"

Poetry emerges as the residue of living, an inevitable remainder left behind by the intensity of authentic experience. Cohen identifies poetry not as the act itself but as the trace, the aftermath, the ash produced by life’s passionate fire. The metaphor of burning alludes to a life lived with depth, fervor, and presence, where each moment blazes with significance. In such a life, poetry is not an artificial effort or a contrived structure, but a natural consequence. When existence is fully ignited, language, emotion, and reflection distill as poetry, the residue after the flames have exhausted all combustible material.

Rather than viewing poetry as a separate, elevated, or rarefied art, Cohen’s words place it within reach of every human experience. Poetry becomes a measure of how thoroughly life has been consumed, ashes do not appear unless something has burned. The vitality of existence, its passions, struggles, joys, and losses, are what produce poetry; they are the fuel for the creative fire. The poet, therefore, is not necessarily one who sets out to write poetry, but someone who lives so intensely that poetry appears naturally, as ashes linger after a bonfire.

There is also an implicit humility and acceptance in this perspective. The ash is not the fire itself, nor is it the purpose of burning. It cannot substitute for the flames; it only testifies to their former presence. Poetry, then, is evidence, proof that something powerful has transpired, but it never captures the fullness or radiance of the lived moment. The creation of poetry is an act of witness and of memory. Readers encounter ashes and, through them, infer the fire that once burned. Ultimately, Cohen suggests that one must strive first to live passionately and authentically, trusting that if the fire is real, the ash, poetry, will inevitably follow.