"Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing"
About this Quote
Merwin’s line lands with the snap timing of a punchline, but it’s really a warning shot: poems don’t forgive sloppiness. By comparing poetry to a joke, he yanks lyric-making out of the realm of misty inspiration and into the hard mechanics of delivery. A joke “works” because it’s an engineered release of tension; the last word is a trapdoor. Change it and the whole structure collapses, not because the audience is picky, but because the internal logic has been broken.
The subtext is an argument about craft disguised as a casual analogy. Merwin isn’t saying poetry should be funny; he’s saying poetry is an event in time. Its meaning isn’t just semantic, it’s rhythmic, tonal, and psychological. One word can tilt a line from revelation into melodrama, from precision into vagueness, from earned surprise into mere twist. The end matters because it’s where the reader’s trust is cashed out: the poem either completes its pressure system or leaks.
Contextually, this tracks with Merwin’s reputation for exacting musicality and his later, spare, punctuation-light style. When you remove obvious signposts, every word carries more load; cadence and placement become the grammar. The joke comparison also flatters the reader in a sly way: it assumes an alert audience, listening for the turn, ready to feel the difference between “close enough” and right. Merwin’s quiet insistence is that poetry, like comedy, is ruthless about attention. You don’t get to be approximate and still expect the effect.
The subtext is an argument about craft disguised as a casual analogy. Merwin isn’t saying poetry should be funny; he’s saying poetry is an event in time. Its meaning isn’t just semantic, it’s rhythmic, tonal, and psychological. One word can tilt a line from revelation into melodrama, from precision into vagueness, from earned surprise into mere twist. The end matters because it’s where the reader’s trust is cashed out: the poem either completes its pressure system or leaks.
Contextually, this tracks with Merwin’s reputation for exacting musicality and his later, spare, punctuation-light style. When you remove obvious signposts, every word carries more load; cadence and placement become the grammar. The joke comparison also flatters the reader in a sly way: it assumes an alert audience, listening for the turn, ready to feel the difference between “close enough” and right. Merwin’s quiet insistence is that poetry, like comedy, is ruthless about attention. You don’t get to be approximate and still expect the effect.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
|---|
More Quotes by S. Merwin
Add to List
