[-empyre-] A poem is a small (or large) machine

[Margaret J Rhee]

"There's nothing sentimental about a machine, and: A poem is a small
(or large) machine made out of words. When I say there's nothing
sentimental about a poem, I mean that there can be no part that is
redundant. Prose may carry a load of ill-defined matter like a ship.
But poetry is a machine which drives it, pruned to a perfect economy.
As in all machines, its movement is intrinsic, undulant, a physical
more than a literary character."

I'd like to start a thread about this quote by WCW, that Mike raised 
here.
A friend the Mexican poet Hugo Martinez, remarked we should replace 
machine
with machete.

"There must be something hardwired into its machinery--a heartbeat, a
pulse--that keeps it breathing." -- Ed Hirsch