Someone on another platform asked me: “Is poetry a simulation?” It was a response to a picture I posted of a sunset with the caption: “The natural world will always be preferable to a simulation.”

My response:

Poetry at its best doesn’t simulate experience, but becomes an experience unto itself. Poetry at its worst is an afterthought—it lags behind itself, never managing to make its own weather in its own time, and in that sense, yes, is a simulation.