An Artist
The anchorite, Kisen, Composed a thousand poems And threw nine hundred and ninety-nine into the river Finding one alone worthy of preservation.
Amy Lowell
The anchorite, Kisen, Composed a thousand poems And threw nine hundred and ninety-nine into the river Finding one alone worthy of preservation.
Amy Lowell turns a legend about the hermit-poet Kisen into a tiny fable about artistic self-judgment. Kisen writes a thousand poems, then throws all but one into the river. The speaker doesn’t mourn the lost poems or explain what made the survivor worthy; she simply lets the stark fact stand.
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