Ah, irony...

There I was talking on and on--explaining, explaining, explaining--the importance of direct sensory experience in Williams' poetry, the way the images he creates, the words he chooses, the music, the line breaks all contribute to the poem becoming an experience itself.

And yet instead of just reading more poems--experiencing more poems--I kept on explaining, explaining, explaining.

"Show don't tell" is the most common advice for poets and storytellers. Though teachers often have to show and tell (or explain), I should shut up, get out of the way, and show more often.

Here's a poem by Whitman that's about seeing-what-is-shown after hearing-what-is-said. Direct experience: that's the thing. [The lines that begin with ">" should be read as part of the preceding line. Uncle Walt loves the long line. WCW prefers the short one. This significantly affects the experience of reading the poems.]

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in >columns before me; When I was shown the charts, the diagrams, to >add, divide, and measure them; When I sitting heard the astronomer where he >lectured with much applause in the >lecture room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by >myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to >time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.