Helping beginning poets to understand Keats's idea of "negative capability" seems to be a standard part of poetry instruction now, and thank god for that. To understand negative capability--to strive for this--means being able to do some things important to being a human being, not just a poet.
In Writing Poems (a damn fine book and topic for another post) two pages are spent on the topic. This might not seem like much, but for a book on poetry instruction, this is some good ink. These two pages seem to be enough to convey to beginning poets the idea that if they want to become better poets, in much of their work, as they work, they need to be able to remove preconceptions, assumptions, and judgments--especially if they want that work to move audiences.
And that's the kicker--negative capability means nothing to a beginning poet unless that beginning poet really wants to use language to connect to a larger world. When a poet empties out the self, the poet becomes a void which the world can enter. Poems written in this state are poems in which the speaker is open to the world, open enough to allow the whole world in, allow readers in. There's abundant generosity and empathy at work in negative capability. If poets aren't willing to develop those skills, they won't fully inhabit the power of a good poem, let alone a great poem.
They may still write some good poems--poems that cheer the tavern patrons, some funny poems, some political poems, perhaps even some poems capable of conveying complicated emotions--but those poems will be like windowless cells: completely contained spaces designed to trap meaning inside. There will be visitors who will stop by, visitors who "get it," but most of the world will be forever shut out.
It's scary and difficult to practice this skill. Everything about society--our religions, our studies, our survival--is based on interpretation and evaluation. We must know what things mean. Things must have a point. There has to be a system, a method, a logic. Why tell a story unless there is a lesson to be learned, unless there's a point, unless we know right from wrong and good from bad?
I'm supposed to let go of all that?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
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