Poetry

Tanto vos quiso la magnificencia

Dotar de virtudes y congloriar

Que muchos procuran de vos imitar

En vida y en toda virtud y prudencia.

{So did magnificence strive/to crown your virtue with glory / that many seek to copy / your wise and virtuous life.}

-Juan de Mena, Praise of Marqués de Santillana, Migo López de Mendoza

A deliberately poetic vocabulary, a record of ideas incompatible with common speech, would be a different matter, however. The world of appearance is complicated, and language has only verbalized a miniscule part of its potential, indefatigable combinations.

-Jorges Luis Borges “Verbiage for Poems”

Poetry always seemed to me to be a seldom well done, and rather self-serving pursuit. Borges argues that the job of a poet is akin to that of a Physicist or Biologist. As our knowledge of the world has grown, so too has the wealth of descriptive language we have at our disposal. He asks, why not "create a word...for our lack of trust in ourselves after we have done wrong?" As our language grows so too does our world - language (poetry included) therefore can be seen as an exercise in expanding the limits of our reality.