Senna Jawa
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- May 13, 2002
- Posts
- 3,272
Poetry is more than a craft, and it is more than a display of feelings. Actually, the poetic craft requires an intuitive or consciencious grasp of the scope of poetry, while a display of feelings may be about the worst thing one can do to a poem. To understand poetry means to understand its source, its goal and its ethics. They form a harmonious trio.
The source. Poetry comes from the following recognition:
Man is a particle of Nature
The goal of poetry is
to evoke deep, subtle feelings, a transcendental reflection.
The poetic ethics consists of exactly one commandment:
every element of a poem has to contribute
to the poetic effect, has to carry poetry.
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We see that poetry is more than craftsmanship. Poetry ia a unique philosophy. While in the West schools are proclaimed in different countries every few years, the statement "Man is a particle of Nature" was, essentially, the source of the Chinese and folk poetry over two thousand years. Only mathematics can claim a longer tradition. This is why while Ezra Pound and certain other Western poets had arrived at a number of isolated and seemingly isolated good suggestions to a naive poet, Chinese and Japanese have developed an entire system, in which those advices are incorporated harmoniously and naturally.
I must add that in the literature you will find only a weaker statement: poetry should reflect the unity of Man and Nature. It is weaker because it seems to claim a symmetry and equality of the two parties, Man and Nature. There is none. Poetry requires the fundamental understanding that we, the humans, are but a speckle of Nature. Poetry is possible only when this fundamental premise is fully accepted, when it is a part of the poet's make up.
We see that there is but one poetic "philosophy" and not many. Anything which contradicts the poetic philosophy, which means its source, leads to productions characterized by bad taste.
On the other hand the recognition of the place of Man in Nature does not restrict poetry in any way, no more than a statemnt about 2+2 being 4
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The goal of poetry is well recognized: to evoke deep and subtle emotions, to leave the reader with a transcendent reflection or feeling.. And one should stress word evoke as oppossed to describe or provide, which would go against the first point mentioned above: Man is a particle of Nature.
For instance, Harold G. Henderson commented an early haiku in these words:
Sokan's verses are apt to be clever conceits like:
If to the moon
one puts a handle--what
a splendid fan!
This sort of thing is hardly haiku--or real poetry--even though it does suggest the perfect fullness of the moon, the pleasure of looking at it so that it seems attached to a tree branch, and the cool of a summer night after a hot day. The reason that it is "not haiku" is that it is not even meant to express or evoke any real emotions.
(See Harol G. Henderson (c) 1958, "An Introduction to Haiku", Doubleday Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-09376-4, page 11).
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The poetry's commandment admits also a negative formulation:
placebo kills poetry
The source. Poetry comes from the following recognition:
Man is a particle of Nature
The goal of poetry is
to evoke deep, subtle feelings, a transcendental reflection.
The poetic ethics consists of exactly one commandment:
every element of a poem has to contribute
to the poetic effect, has to carry poetry.
--------
We see that poetry is more than craftsmanship. Poetry ia a unique philosophy. While in the West schools are proclaimed in different countries every few years, the statement "Man is a particle of Nature" was, essentially, the source of the Chinese and folk poetry over two thousand years. Only mathematics can claim a longer tradition. This is why while Ezra Pound and certain other Western poets had arrived at a number of isolated and seemingly isolated good suggestions to a naive poet, Chinese and Japanese have developed an entire system, in which those advices are incorporated harmoniously and naturally.
I must add that in the literature you will find only a weaker statement: poetry should reflect the unity of Man and Nature. It is weaker because it seems to claim a symmetry and equality of the two parties, Man and Nature. There is none. Poetry requires the fundamental understanding that we, the humans, are but a speckle of Nature. Poetry is possible only when this fundamental premise is fully accepted, when it is a part of the poet's make up.
We see that there is but one poetic "philosophy" and not many. Anything which contradicts the poetic philosophy, which means its source, leads to productions characterized by bad taste.
On the other hand the recognition of the place of Man in Nature does not restrict poetry in any way, no more than a statemnt about 2+2 being 4
--------
The goal of poetry is well recognized: to evoke deep and subtle emotions, to leave the reader with a transcendent reflection or feeling.. And one should stress word evoke as oppossed to describe or provide, which would go against the first point mentioned above: Man is a particle of Nature.
For instance, Harold G. Henderson commented an early haiku in these words:
Sokan's verses are apt to be clever conceits like:
If to the moon
one puts a handle--what
a splendid fan!
This sort of thing is hardly haiku--or real poetry--even though it does suggest the perfect fullness of the moon, the pleasure of looking at it so that it seems attached to a tree branch, and the cool of a summer night after a hot day. The reason that it is "not haiku" is that it is not even meant to express or evoke any real emotions.
(See Harol G. Henderson (c) 1958, "An Introduction to Haiku", Doubleday Anchor Books, ISBN 0-385-09376-4, page 11).
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The poetry's commandment admits also a negative formulation:
placebo kills poetry
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