Tribute Poetry | Inspiration

For the Love of Ronsard’s Roses

Making good my ignorance with found poetry for Pierre de Ronsard

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Gather the roses of life today
Pierre de Ronsard, from Sonnets pour Hélène, 1578

You don’t know what you don’t know…until you know.
Esther Hofknecht Curtis, from Medium, March 31, 2018

I’ve given credit for the second quote to Esther Hofknecht Curtis, not because she’s the first person to have made such a statement, but because it’s the title of the story she wrote after coming across an article about the Dunning-Kruger effect: being ignorant of your own ignorance.

There’s something to be said of ignorance and the freedom it gives in not knowing.

The luxury of living life in an ‘ignorance is bliss’ bubble where ‘no news is good news’ and ‘what you don’t know can’t hurt you’.

Then there’s the flip-side — the arrogance of believing you know it all.

That is, until such time your ignorance — or your arrogance — rouses itself and spits ‘wake-up-to-yourself’ oil in your eye.

Has that happened to you?

It happens to me all the time. And what’s more, it’s happening with increasing frequency the older I get.