Defining Poetry

[Angeline]

I have been reading definitions of poetry because I've been struck lately by the difference between poems that try to affect by explaining and poems that try to affect with images. I have been evolving toward an understanding of effective poetry as that which creates images that evoke the reader's senses. Other kinds of poems may be intellectually appealing or perfectly constructed, but if the purpose of poetry (as opposed to prose) is to somehow transport the reader, then the senses must be evoked.


Here are a few definitions that seem to me to support this:

Poetry is essentially the antithesis of Metaphysics: Metaphysics purge the mind of the senses and cultivate the disembodiment of the spiritual; Poetry is all passionate and feeling and animates the inanimate; Metaphysics are most perfect when concerned with universals; Poetry, when most concerned with particulars.
~Samuel Beckett


Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling.... A fine poem will seize your imagination intellectually—that is, when you reach it, you will reach it intellectually too— but the way is through emotion, through what we call feeling.
~Muriel Rukeyser

When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers. ~ Brian Patten



Poetry is the deification of reality.
~Edith Sitwell

How do you define poetry? Is there a poem that exemplifies your definition?

I guess for me it might be something by Neruda, whom I see as a sensualist, in the way his way his imagery appeals to the senses.

Ode to the Book by Pablo Neruda

When I close a book
I open life.
I hear
faltering cries
among harbours.
Copper ignots
slide down sand-pits
to Tocopilla.
Night time.
Among the islands
our ocean
throbs with fish,
touches the feet, the thighs,
the chalk ribs
of my country.
The whole of night
clings to its shores, by dawn
it wakes up singing
as if it had excited a guitar.

The ocean's surge is calling.
The wind
calls me
and Rodriguez calls,
and Jose Antonio--
I got a telegram
from the "Mine" Union
and the one I love
(whose name I won't let out)
expects me in Bucalemu.

No book has been able
to wrap me in paper,
to fill me up
with typography,
with heavenly imprints
or was ever able
to bind my eyes,
I come out of books to people orchards
with the hoarse family of my song,
to work the burning metals
or to eat smoked beef
by mountain firesides.
I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile
and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems--
they devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I have lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.

 

[KillerMuffin]

From the Writer's Market Encylopedia:


The oldest form of literature and the first to be put into written form. An extremely complex and subjective concept, poetry cannot be completely or precisely defined. It is generally agreed, however, that poetry as a literary form expresses, through extraordinary use of language and a highly developed artistic form, a unique and imaginative interpretation of a subject. Good poetry creates an emotional impact and aesthetic effect by appealing primarily to a reader's senses and emotions.

Poetry is often used as a synonym for verse. Although all poetry may be considered verse—speech or writing in metrical form—not all verse may be thought of as poetry. The distinction between the two lies in the profundity of thought and emotion. For example, "Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow," is both lyrical and metrical; it does not, however, represent the depth of thought, imagination and emotion that characterizes poetry.

Poetry is further distinguished as a literary form from prose—spoken or written expression that is not metrical. Poetry makes greater use of literary devices such as metaphor, simile, allusion, alliteration and onomatopoeia than does prose. The emphasis in poetry is on economy of language—as the poet compresses as much meaning as possible into the fewest possible words, the language is elevated to a unique artistic expression.

A more fundamental distinction between poetry and prose is that a writer may use prose to communicate information and ideas that, when expressed by a different arrangement of words, still convey the same basic message. In a poetic composition, however, the purpose of which is to create an emotional impact, words and ideas cannot be separated from form; the two are inextricably linked. Poet Judson Jerome explained in The Poet's Handbook: "Great poetry may contain great wisdom, but that is never the reason it is great poetry. It is not enough. It is the form, the shaping of the language, which makes poetry endure. It is not what it meant to the poet that is important; rather, it is the effect it has on an audience."

Although there are many kinds of poems—classified in part according to style, subject matter, form, intended effect or purpose, metrical pattern and viewpoint—there are three acknowledged major divisions in Western literature: narrative, dramatic and lyric.

http://www.writersmarket.com/encyc/p.asp

 

[Angeline]

Thanks KM!

Wonderful explanation, and I've already bookmarked the link.

 

[TheDR4KE]

From the Writer's Market Encylopedia:


A more fundamental distinction between poetry and prose is that a writer may use prose to communicate information and ideas that, when expressed by a different arrangement of words, still convey the same basic message. In a poetic composition, however, the purpose of which is to create an emotional impact, words and ideas cannot be separated from form; the two are inextricably linked.


http://www.writersmarket.com/encyc/p.asp

I find that paragraph very interesting, however I think novels clearly have the same effect. See for example the different stylistic exercises here (originally from another site but that is currently down by the looks of it). The basic message is the same, but the emotional impact is very different.


Poetry seems to focus more on the emotional impact for me -- is it maybe a question of the ratio? Or the purity of how well the author is in touch with their emotion and has managed to encapsulate it, which we resonate to?

Quack

the D

 

[Angeline]

DR4KE said

I find that paragraph very interesting, however I think novels clearly have the same effect.


It's the writer. Some writers are poetic in the sense of transporting the reader's emotions no matter the genre. Virginia Woolf comes to mind, for example.

 

[TheDR4KE]

Yes, that is very true. Some writers write poetic prose, while others write prosaic poems.

Quack

the D

 

[Angeline]

Prosaic prose

Yes, that is very true. Some writers write poetic prose, while others write prosaic poems.


This whole question came up for me because I read a "prosaic poem" here--on the subject of poetry. It was divided into stanzas. It looked like a poem, but it read like prose. Was it a poem? And can that question be answered absolutely or does it depend on the reader?

 

[TheDR4KE]

I personally think that it depends on the reader. What resonates for me, may not do so for you.

And even if a poetry-educated critic looks down on it, that is just one person's opinion. All we can say is "I like it. It is poetry for me." and that is where all meaning lies.

Quack

the D

PS Look up "Poems on Poetry" or "Poetry on Poetry" or "Meta Poetry" on google for a whole bunch of collections out there to compare it with Q, the D

 

[Senna Jawa]

I have been reading definitions of poetry ... the senses must be evoked.

I wish Literotica had a provision for essays just as it does for stories and poems. Then I would attempt a systematic exposition of my view on poetry. (When I say "my", I simply mean that my goal would not be to present someone else's view or work. BTW, recently I have started such an exposition in Polish and have stopped after three installments).

Regards,

 

[TheDR4KE]

Hi Senna

I'd love to read your view on this. There is a Literotica essay section here. I guess you could clearly mark your submission as being targeted at this area and email it to submit@literotica.com, rather than using the forms based submission system.

Quack

the D

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Thanks, D. I was just about to say that right after Senna's post when my connection broke.

You should to it, Senna. That section could use something about poetry. I'd really like to see it. And if it includes that long awaited explanation on why is it there can't be any real poetry in bodily fluids or internal organs other than if the poem's set in an hospital or something like that, I'd even pay to see it. *chuckles*

 

[MyOpinion]

mmni

 

[Senna Jawa]

Hi Senna

I'd love to read your view on this. There is a Literotica essay section here. I guess you could clearly mark your submission as being targeted at this area and email it to submit@literotica.com, rather than using the forms based submission system.

Quack

the D

I guess, I should write a letter to the admin?

Thank you TheDR4KE for your info & suggestion.

Regards,

 

[KillerMuffin]

You shouldn't have to write a letter to admin. Just submit it the same way you do your poetry, only hit "submit story" instead of "submit poetry" and pick the Erotic Reviews & Essays category. Or the Non-Erotic category.

Heck. Submit it to the poetry list. It's about poetry, right?

*shrugs* Makes sense to me at least.

 

[HomerPindar]

I remember chatting with you, Ang, on aesthetic poetry vs structural poetry, wherein one appeals by using words to convey a feeling or imagry, while the other does more by examining the structure of words or meaning.

So, I guess I'd have to say any success with either endevour would count as poetry for me.


HomerPindar

 

[RhymeFairy]

I have been reading definitions of poetry because I've been struck lately by the difference between poems that try to affect by explaining and poems that try to affect with images. I have been evolving toward an understanding of effective poetry as that which creates images that evoke the reader's senses. Other kinds of poems may be intellectually appealing or perfectly constructed, but if the purpose of poetry (as opposed to prose) is to somehow transport the reader, then the senses must be evoked.


Here are a few definitions that seem to me to support this:

Poetry is essentially the antithesis of Metaphysics: Metaphysics purge the mind of the senses and cultivate the disembodiment of the spiritual; Poetry is all passionate and feeling and animates the inanimate; Metaphysics are most perfect when concerned with universals; Poetry, when most concerned with particulars.
~Samuel Beckett


Poetry is, above all, an approach to the truth of feeling.... A fine poem will seize your imagination intellectually—that is, when you reach it, you will reach it intellectually too— but the way is through emotion, through what we call feeling.
~Muriel Rukeyser

When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers. ~ Brian Patten



Poetry is the deification of reality.
~Edith Sitwell

How do you define poetry? Is there a poem that exemplifies your definition?

I guess for me it might be something by Neruda, whom I see as a sensualist, in the way his way his imagery appeals to the senses.


Ode to the Book by Pablo Neruda

When I close a book
I open life.
I hear
faltering cries
among harbours.
Copper ignots
slide down sand-pits
to Tocopilla.
Night time.
Among the islands
our ocean
throbs with fish,
touches the feet, the thighs,
the chalk ribs
of my country.
The whole of night
clings to its shores, by dawn
it wakes up singing
as if it had excited a guitar.

The ocean's surge is calling.
The wind
calls me
and Rodriguez calls,
and Jose Antonio--
I got a telegram
from the "Mine" Union
and the one I love
(whose name I won't let out)
expects me in Bucalemu.

No book has been able
to wrap me in paper,
to fill me up
with typography,
with heavenly imprints
or was ever able
to bind my eyes,
I come out of books to people orchards
with the hoarse family of my song,
to work the burning metals
or to eat smoked beef
by mountain firesides.
I love adventurous
books,
books of forest or snow,
depth or sky
but hate
the spider book
in which thought
has laid poisonous wires
to trap the juvenile
and circling fly.
Book, let me go.
I won't go clothed
in volumes,
I don't come out
of collected works,
my poems
have not eaten poems--
they devour
exciting happenings,
feed on rough weather,
and dig their food
out of earth and men.
I'm on my way
with dust in my shoes
free of mythology:
send books back to their shelves,
I'm going down into the streets.
I learned about life
from life itself,
love I learned in a single kiss
and could teach no one anything
except that I have lived
with something in common among men,
when fighting with them,
when saying all their say in my song.

Had to bump this thread. Thank You Angeline for shining your light upon this subject. I question so many things about my writing and others. I had to bump this one. Might help self and others, imho ...

 

[Angeline]

Had to bump this thread. Thank You Angeline for shining your light upon this subject. I question so many things about my writing and others. I had to bump this one. Might help self and others, imho ...

Thanks, RF.

I've evolved since I started this thread three years ago--I've decided I love image-laden narrative poetry. Um and just images. And just narrative...

 

[denis hale]

Hi Ange

I just picked up a collection, called "Passing Through" by Stanley Kunitz, and was struck with what he had to say about poetics in the book's introduction-- which he penned himself:


According to Stanley:


"...Poetry, I have insisted, is ultimately mythology, the telling of the stories of the soul. This would seem to be an introverted, even solipsistic, enterprise, if it were not that these stories recount the soul's passage through the valley of this life--that is to say, its adventure in time, in history...

Poetry, it cannot be denied, requires a mastery of craft, but it is more than a playground for technicians. The craft I admire most manifests itself not as an aggregate of linguistic or prosodic skills, but as a form of spiritual testimony, the sign of the inviolable self consolidated against the enemies within and without that would corrupt or destroy human pride and dignity...

Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: Poetry is for the sake of the life..."


I like how Kunitz uses the terms adventure, and testimony.

That sorta gets at the heart of the matter--for me.


Here's to Adventure, and Evolution!


--D

 

[Decayed Angel]

I just picked up a collection, called "Passing Through" by Stanley Kunitz, and was struck with what he had to say about poetics in the book's introduction-- which he penned himself:

I had an opportunity to see him read in 2002. He read a poem of Paul Celan's at the Holecaust Museum in DC. He was 97 or so at the time, a small man, rather frail, shoulders haunched as he very slowly climbed the three or four steps up onto the stage. He moved behind the podium, opened his book and talked a bit, giving a brief introduction to the poem and some of his own history relating to the death camps.

Strangely, as he spoke he seemed to grow and this continued as he began reading. The frail, old, weak man increased in stature. The words, read so eloquently, had a power a power that emerged through his reading. I have seen other poets read, stumbling over their own work, obviously not comfortable before the people... Kunitz was different, it was as if he entered his element when he began to speak. This amazing man then finished the reading and then slowly descended from the stage to a small table where he autographed some books.

As I waited in line I rehearsed some wonderfully inspiring thing to say to him as he signed my books, but then looking at the, once again, small, frail man all I could say was, "I enjoyed your reading." He smiled, signed my two books and I walked away.

Since that time I've been to readings and speeches by Billy Collins, Stanley Plumly, Galway Kinnell and several other nationally known poets, but none left me in such awe as Stanley Kunitz.

I own a copy of Passing Through, unfortunately it was not one I had with me on that trip, so I didn't get it signed. He was an inspiring poet and an inspiring man.

 

[Angeline]

I just picked up a collection, called "Passing Through" by Stanley Kunitz, and was struck with what he had to say about poetics in the book's introduction-- which he penned himself:


According to Stanley:


"...Poetry, I have insisted, is ultimately mythology, the telling of the stories of the soul. This would seem to be an introverted, even solipsistic, enterprise, if it were not that these stories recount the soul's passage through the valley of this life--that is to say, its adventure in time, in history...

Poetry, it cannot be denied, requires a mastery of craft, but it is more than a playground for technicians. The craft I admire most manifests itself not as an aggregate of linguistic or prosodic skills, but as a form of spiritual testimony, the sign of the inviolable self consolidated against the enemies within and without that would corrupt or destroy human pride and dignity...

Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: Poetry is for the sake of the life..."


I like how Kunitz uses the terms adventure, and testimony.

That sorta gets at the heart of the matter--for me.


Here's to Adventure, and Evolution!


--D

Hello dear poet. Hope all is well with you. I miss you!

I agree with Kunitz that poetry (good poetry) is a spiritual testimony. Just testimony would simply be narrative (like much fiction or informative writing), but the spiritual aspect joined with the testimony takes it to another level--makes it poetry.

There's nothing new in poetry. Just like in Shakespeare's plays, wonderful as they are, great poems express basic human situations that have been around from time immemorial: love, power struggles, jealousy, but the vivid imagery that communicates our spiritual connection to them makes the magic.

And given that eagleyez is watching the Red Sox wrap-up and is four feet away from me saying that some relief pitcher "blows dog poop," I think that's as philosophical as I can be tonight.

Always a pleasure, Denis.

 

[Senna Jawa]

prose versus poetry

Prose: author - 90%, reader - 10%

Poetry: author - 50%, reader - 50%

 

[Angeline]

Prose: author - 90%, reader - 10%

Poetry: author - 50%, reader - 50%

Good definition and very senna jawa-ish to use proportions to explain it, but I know just what you mean.

 

[Senna Jawa]

THE distinction

Good definition and very senna jawa-ish to use proportions to explain it, but I know just what you mean.

Good? It's THE distinction between the prose and the poetry.

Once I make a definition or a distinction, that's it -- it's just my gift. Look at other definitions and you'll see how wordy, how muddy, how useless, and how untrue they are. They hardly teach you anything about the difference between prose and poetry.

After my phrasing you may have a strong feeling about different pieces, to what extent they are prose or poetry. If you feel that about 1/3 is left to the reader, then such a piece is somewhere between prose and poetry. If less than 10% is left to a reader then it is a somewhat boring prose, overstated. If much less than 50% is provided by the author then it is a somewhat poor poem, where you wonder if there is anything. If author says too much, then its no good, boring, but if most everything is said by a reader, and not solidly founded on the poem, then the text is too thin, not substantial.

I am here isolating the prose<-->poetry axis, and I am not touching upon other issues like what should and what should not be said in a piece, etc.

Regards,

 

[Liar]

Was thinking about this. And I've got nothing to add about the 50/50 defininition of poetry. Sounds sound to me.

But what about text that is intentionally vauge? Text that gives nothing but a nudge in a general direction of a theme or mood, and lets the reader provide a majority of the imagery and story. Throw up a word or phrase, maybe combine it with a color or shape, and let the reader populate it with their own associations. This is for instance used quite a bit in lifestyle advertising, and is, in the way it's conducted, more reminicent of music or abstract art than any literary genre.

No, it's probably not poetry. But hell, it's something. Some kind of communication through text. Just not sure what to call it. Anyone got a label?

 

[TheRainMan]

How do you define poetry?

prose is defined by what is left in.

poetry is defined by what is left out.