Been thinking ... What is poetry

[CharleyH]

What is poetry? The essence or soul of it. A bunch of words put together? What IS poetry, exactly?

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

A word painting? An image created in words.

 

[Angeline]

A word painting? An image created in words.

Yeah. What she said. It's art. The stuff that we respond to in any art form, that moves us only in poetry it's conveyed with words instead of sounds or colors, etc.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Yeah. What she said. It's art. The stuff that we respond to in any art form, that moves us only in poetry it's conveyed with words instead of sounds or colors, etc.

Poetry can invoke or present an emotion too. Not easy in the other media.

 

[Angeline]

Poetry can invoke or present an emotion too. Not easy in the other media.

Film can when it's good. So can music: in fact I think that for me music is better at evoking emotions than any other art form. I think it depends on the person. I'm sure there are people who can be moved to joy or tears by a painting. When I was a little girl my dad took me to the New York World's Fair (so this was 1963-64) and the Italian Pavilion was displaying Michaelangelo's Pieta. I still remember looking up at it and realizing that all around me, adults were looking at it and weeping because it's so beautiful and because of what it evoked in them.

Oh. You said presenting. Duh. But still the reason it's good is because we read and react to it, yes?

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Film can when it's good. So can music: in fact I think that for me music is better at evoking emotions than any other art form. I think it depends on the person. I'm sure there are people who can be moved to joy or tears by a painting. When I was a little girl my dad took me to the New York World's Fair (so this was 1963-64) and the Italian Pavilion was displaying Michaelangelo's Pieta. I still remember looking up at it and realizing that all around me, adults were looking at it and weeping because it's so beautiful and because of what it evoked in them.

Oh. You said presenting. Duh. But still the reason it's good is because we read and react to it, yes?

Well, I was really thinking of visual art - drawing, painting etc. I agree music can be very emotional. I actually think it can move one more than words.

 

[Liar]

What is poetry?

How long is a piece of string? Or sumpfin like that.

Poetry is art created with semantics and prosody.

So the real question is: What is art?

I'll let you guys chew on that. It's bedtime for me.

 

[AChild]

Poetry

Poetry is the intellectual everest. Poetry is highest mountain, poetry is the highest peek. The understanding of it is to fall into another box. To let the lizard of "I" out and seek another shelter. In the poet box you may find a heart. You put it in the category of "muscle beating blood through out the body." Later in the poem you find out that the poet means a valentine heart. You have to go back and change the labels. Words and phrases change with a ripple of new understanding. That is if you want to keep up. If you want to win the game. If you want to conquer the mountain. You get the feeling that there could be other boxes within the poets box. Meanings split like light broken on a prism.

Poetry is a puzzle. The poet makes the image and you make the pieces. Sometimes you make too many pieces. Connecting the poet's message to your own values. They may be pieces that you haven't seen before or things you haven't thought of in a long time. It is an unintentional mosaic but beautiful because it belongs to you.
Sometimes you don't make enough pieces. You have to make more meanings for the symbols. Look up words. Learn some new language or new lingo. Better understand a culture. Know a change. Change and know. Read the poem later when you can experiance other dictionaries. Until then then the poem is a landscape with a absent sky or a portrait with the phantom nose. You might fill out one image but have pieces left over to make some more.

The short answer is Fun poetry is Fun.

 

[CharleyH]

No offence but. SHITE! I'd forgotten about this thread. Poetry to me is the way my lover and I make love (on the happy side). The way my mother died on the sad side. The way I've experienced sex on the funny side. Poetry, writing poetry ... to me ... is taking a breath and exhaling awe.

 

[Tzara]

Poems are projective tests.

 

[PersianKittie]

poetry is like porn...what did that senator say? I cannot define it, but i will know it when i see it

 

[CharleyH]

poetry is like porn...what did that senator say? I cannot define it, but i will know it when i see it

No offence, but I am pretty sure poetry isn't like porn. Poetry has much more finesse (IMO) than porn.

 

[Liar]

No offence, but I am pretty sure poetry isn't like porn. Poetry has much more finesse (IMO) than porn.

It's very much like porn. It either bore people, offend people or turn people on.

 

[CharleyH]

It's very much like porn. It either bore people, offend people or turn people on.

Yeah, so Lauren warned. Yet, I do not like to think so.

 

[PersianKittie]

No offence, but I am pretty sure poetry isn't like porn. Poetry has much more finesse (IMO) than porn.

You missed my point. The point was that they are similar in the following way: Poetry (like porn) is hard to define in specific terms, nevertheless most of us can tell when we read/hear poetry.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

You missed my point. The point was that they are similar in the following way: Poetry (like porn) is hard to define in specific terms, nevertheless most of us can tell when we read/hear poetry.

It is indeed an interesting comparison. Certainly they both have flexible definitions, and in both cases the judgment of what is or isn't may say more about the person judging than it does about the actual work. I can certainly see where you're going with that idea.

bj

 

[champagne1982]

Poetry?

There is poetry in joy,
even in sadness,
with a melancholy overlay
like black lace.

I have heard poetry.
Found it in a bird's song,
listened to a lover's sigh
and susurrant surf.

Poetry's when your heart
grabs you in a spinning whirl,
like a Dervish dance,
sending prayers to God.

But mostly, poetry is a conversation
you have with the world
when you need to talk
to someone.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Poetry?



But mostly, poetry is a conversation
you have with the world
when you need to talk
to someone.

That's as good a definition for why I write as any I've seen. I generally do my best work when my audience is god and the world.

But facetiously, since I would never dare to actually define this stuff:
Poetry is a game of navel-gazing and wanna-see-my-scar played by people who believe their angst can be validated if presented to an audience as art.
And they are sometimes correct.


bj

 

[sweet GA peaches]

Thought..

That's as good a definition for why I write as any I've seen. I generally do my best work when my audience is god and the world.

But facetiously, since I would never dare to actually define this stuff:
Poetry is a game of navel-gazing and wanna-see-my-scar played by people who believe their angst can be validated if presented to an audience as art.
And they are sometimes correct.


bj

I relate to your theory of poetry and verse. I myself have a lifetimes of worth on valued shelves which mean not shit to a soul, but me *grins*. However, I use the pen as a hard sleeve to hide my void in a sense where I lack true communication. To which , my point is across verbally, but when revealed on paper it becomes a much deeper level, where I am free in thought to roam and express all that I cannot say aloud. It is a protective covering, a shield, where I can scribble and erase all that I wish to be lost or found, in true meaning or hidden verse. Though I must say when I write, it is my goal that you see what I am writing as much as feel, that I strike a cord within you that leaves you lingering for the next word.

I loved your reply, and find that you are most likely.. poetically correct.

 

[anonamouse]

What is poetry? The essence or soul of it. A bunch of words put together? What IS poetry, exactly?

what do the signs
point you to?

semiotically speaking

if you excluse everything that is not poetry
then what is left must be

 

[anonamouse]

That's as good a definition for why I write as any I've seen. I generally do my best work when my audience is god and the world.




bj

Rush Limbaugh???

 

[bogusbrig]

To paraphrase Adrian Mitchell , poetry is what most people ignore because most poetry ignores most people.

 

[twelveoone]

Poems are projective tests.

You mean that stain you leave on the paper, that any meaning I get out of it is all in my head?
That's just plain mean!

 

[normal jean]

That's as good a definition for why I write as any I've seen. I generally do my best work when my audience is god and the world.

But facetiously, since I would never dare to actually define this stuff:
Poetry is a game of navel-gazing and wanna-see-my-scar played by people who believe their angst can be validated if presented to an audience as art.
And they are sometimes correct.


bj

darling bj

I dont always write to show my scars or my navel, lol. I write to show people what they may not have seen in their own lives. the ocean and how it speaks to me, the sun and stars are never quiet, even though "they" say, if you scream in space, no one will hear you. I scream at space often and am pretty sure someone hears me.....even if it is "just" God.

it is not that easy, or everyone would be doin' it




this discussion comes up at LEAST every six months.....

 

[hmmnmm]

If a faint aromatic residue is left on my fingers, it's close enough to poetry, and if I whiff those faintly aromatic fingers once more, whether it is or is not poetry doesn't matter.