(Modern) Poetry and the Word . . .

“it is the Word which gratifies and fulfills like the sudden revelation of a truth. To say that this truth is of a poetic order is merely to say that the Word in poetry can never be untrue, because it is a whole; it shines with an infinite freedom and prepares to radiate towards innumerable uncertain and possible connections . . . . it is like a monolith, or pillar which plunges into a totality of meanings, reflexes and recollections: it is a sign which stands.”

“Thus under each Word in modern poetry there lies a sort of existential geology, in which is gathered the total content of the Name . . . . Each poetic word is thus an unexpected object, a Pandora’s box from which fly out all the potentialities of language”

(Roland Barthes, Writing Degree Zero)