Writing Problems: Reconciliation

Chaucer, Hugo, Ignatow, Kunitz

If I hadde seyd that ye sholde han purchased the pees and the reconsiliacion I ne hadde nat muchel mystaken me.—Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1386

A poem often feels spontaneous and inevitable at the same time. Poems must reconcile what Ezekiel called “the terrible crystal,” which is a balance between the self and the universe. Reconciliation reflects in the blac…