Well Bottom Blues

Someone on the Threads poetry forum asked:

I’m a poet. I write poetry. But still… I look at some ppls writing and just cringe. Like… you don’t actually believe that do you? You just put some words together that sounded nice, right? Does it even mean anything?

Is this just me?

And I answered:

The best poems dont have a single, intrinsic meaning. They are a mechanism for self discovery, first for the poet and then the reader; a portal as close to spell-work as literature. Yes the poet believes these things or some other closely related things that produce the poem. Perhaps those other things only become apparent writing the poem but the original language remains because it works as that species of music that is poetry. At that point the poem no longer cares what you believe or even what the poet first set out to do, any more than your car cares where you go.  Either it takes you there or it doesn’t. You decide that or you decide not to go or you decide not to take the car. You walk or bike. It’s all the same to the poem and so to the poet, once they release the poem into the world.