extending my apologia on intention in poetry and its translation

this is supposing that poetry is about language, which is as obvious as assuming that a medium confirms a shape:

'what language is poetry about? generally, it is about the language it is in.'
--justin e. h. smith, on stefan george

(i'll overlook his misguided insistence that our 'english' is properly anglo-saxon and germanic, which he dismisses out of hand at the outset ('now i understand that from a historical-linguistic point of view, languages do not have essences') but then nevertheless argues throughout.)