By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
It is difficult treats understanding as common and insufficient; poetry is instead figured as difficult, stepwise work that never simply explains or exposes the self.
This is close to an ars poetica. The poem distrusts both confession and easy explanation, insisting that truth in poetry has to be worked toward again and again.
'It is difficult' is an ars poetica that demotes ease: 'Understanding / Is so common / Work is a dream,' and the real labor 'is not explaning / Or giving yourself / away like a hurt child.' The poem insists craft is harder than confession and unprovable - 'You will never know / if poetry is true' - then answers its own doubt with bare faith, 'But it is / Step by step / All over again,' the work renewed by repetition rather than proof.