What if... an essay seed

What if the whole job of the artist was to make the one who perceives the artifact ask a question? What if I said the best art is the art that makes me ask the most interesting questions?

Margaret Ronk says her poetry is always in the interrogative mode, whether there is a question mark at the end of the line or not. I concur, but I think it important that there not be a question mark. As reader I don't want to answer a question she has framed. Bachelard said, "Make the reader's eyes leave the page." For me, that is the moment of the question. I wish I could remember which artist said he wanted a painting of a house to make him wonder what the people were like who lived there. I can compare paintings of two  houses based on the quality and intensity of that question alone. Purely subjective. Yes, but that's the seed of a different essay.

Here's a poem I read today that made my eyes leave the page.

 First the Message Kills           Hans Favery

First the message kills
the receiver, then
it kills the sender.
It does not matter
in what language.

I stand up, throw
the balcony doors open
and take a breath.

The gulls circling
above the snowless street
I will not entice
with gestures of feeding.

I light a cigarette;
return to my post,
and take a breath.

There is nothing to dream.
Everything is possible.
Little matters.

(rwd 5/2015)