What makes it poetry?

[Susan Strict]

Just because
you
spread it out
on several lines
when one would have
done -
doesn't make it poetry.

Just because
your imagery is deep and flowery
rolling and breaking on the reader's mind
and sweeping away the ideas he has built for himself -
doesn't make it poetry.

Just because
you rhyme
every time
you write a line
well, almost -
doesn't make it poetry.

Just because
your subject matter is deep and profound
exploring the depths of human consciousness
or what is or what might be or what was
(or whatever) -
doesn't make it poetry.

Why is it poetry?
Just because.
(And that wasn't.)

************************************************

But seriously - what makes a poem a poem, and not just formatted prose?

All comments welcome.

Susan.

 

[The_Fool]

There is no such thing as poetry...


Haven't said that in awhile...

 

[Senna Jawa]

1. How is poetry different from prose? 2. What is poetry?

what makes a poem a poem, and not just formatted prose?

I have answered this question not too long ago, and this forum was one of the first places to learn it:

• 
  [*]poetry: 50% author, 50% reader
  [*]prose: 90% author, 10% reader
  

***

The answer to the "What is poetry?" is much longer, and can't be complete. So far, I gave only a short form of it + some comments. I have lost interest (or I don't believe that it's worthwhile) in writing down the whole story. It'd take a thick volume at least.

Let me provide you with the complete, 2-part description of poetry, but just in a very brief form. Like most anything (a car, a person, Earth, ...), also poetry admits an inner and an outer description. The inner definition:

poetry is the art of words
​

The outer definition:

Poetry is described by

• 
  [*]Foundation: man is but a particle of Nature;
  [*]Ethics: each element and aspect of a poem has to serve poetry;
  [*]Goal: to transcend far the text itself.
  

​

***

The above 2-part description is too short to serve as a start point for a meaningful discussion (except that one may ask questions). First you'd have to be told what is the meaning here of "art of words", "foundation", "ethics" and "goal". Right now you may only have vague notions, which may lead to misunderstandings (it sure does ).

Best regards,

Wlodzimierz Holsztynski
(Senna Jawa)
​

 

[Susan Strict]

Oooh! How didactic.

Actually, I'm more interested in personal views of both poets and would-be poets than a definition. I don't think there's a definitive answer, and nor should there be one. If there was, then I think that poetry and being a poet, or trying to be one, would have lost its essence. The "what are you trying to achieve?" is far more than the "that's what you should achieve".


"To transcend far the text itself"

Nice.
A flowery way of putting it, perhaps?

What about: "creating images and feelings in the reader's mind that are far more than the words themselves"?

So why did Coleridge (the Samuel Taylor variety) say that poetry is no more than "the best possible words in the best possible order"? Oh sure, you could say that poetry has moved on since the late 18th and early 19th century, but there are (many?) poems before then that I would certainly say go much further than "the best possible words in the best possible order". You could also argue that he was writing rubbish at that moment because he was stoned most of the time, but when he was stoned is undoubtedly when he wrote some of his best work that was and still is far more than his own description of "the best possible words in the best possible order".

So... perhaps the question should have been: "What, in the minds of those who write poetry here, should a poem be?"

Any takers?

 

[Liar]

What I'm curious of, Susan, is how you can write off things as "not making it poetry", when you (admittedly) don't know what does.

You seem to want to define poetry as an absolute. As something that is separate from the use of linguistic and rhethoric devices. I'd rather define prose as the absense of all the things you described in your poem (or non-poem, as it were?). Prose as an absolute - text whithout the devices that makes it open for intepretation, where the entire mass of the message is in what the reader is told, and nothing in how. That is prose.

Everything else is, to a greater or lesser extent, poetry. Prosaic poetry, perhaps. But I'd rather aim for that than for a perfect poetry formula. Just as I'd rather splash poetic devices into my prose.

 

[Liar]

So why did Coleridge (the Samuel Taylor variety) say that poetry is no more than "the best possible words in the best possible order"? Oh sure, you could say that poetry has moved on since the late 18th and early 19th century, but there are (many?) poems before then that I would certainly say go much further than "the best possible words in the best possible order". You could also argue that he was writing rubbish at that moment because he was stoned most of the time, but when he was stoned is undoubtedly when he wrote some of his best work that was and still is far more than his own description of "the best possible words in the best possible order".

So then it was probably a good selection of words in a good order, considering the intention.

Sometimes, this is the best possible words in the best possible order:

Milk
Eggs
Baking soda
Avocados
Toilet paper

And in another context, this is:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

And in yet another context, this is:

There once was a man from Bel Air,
Who was doing his girl on the stair.
When the banister broke,
He doubled his stroke,
And finished her off in mid-air.

 

[Susan Strict]

What I'm curious of, Susan, is how you can write off things as "not making it poetry", when you (admittedly) don't know what does.
...

Thanks for the rest of your answer but no, that first part quoted above is not it at all. I'm sorry if I haven't made myself clear. I have my own idea of what poetry is, and personally I strongly believe that there IS no absolute definition. Which doesn't mean to say that for others there may well be an absolute they are aiming at. Why might you say, as I do, that my piece of formatted text is not a poem? Or do you disagree? Do you agree that Coleridge's definition of poetry is way off line?

What, in summary, are you trying to do when you write a poem? What "formula" (as you put it) works for you?


Edit: posts crossed: Yes, about Coleridge. Was that what he actually meant, do you think?

 

[Tathagata]

Edit: posts crossed: Yes, about Coleridge. Was that what he actually meant, do you think?

What I think he meant was, if you put the best possible words in the best possible order it would express something that was so blatantly true , so immediately understood that it would " transcend" if you will the written word and be visceral.
It would be something you experience with your body, not just your mind.

 

[Senna Jawa]

I'm more interested in personal views

This was both: my personal view and the definition of poetry, except that in a drastically abbreviated form. At the same time, personal or not, it is based on the history of poetry and the development of the views that go back more than twenty five centuries, starting with the ancient Chinese, via skalds and Japanese, all the way to Boleslaw Lesmian. (I am so sorry for you, guys, that you cannot read Lesmian, or even just poems for children by Julian Tuwim and Boleslaw Lesmian; all those Eliots and Frosts are pitiful weak amateurs when compared to Lesmian).

I don't think there's a definitive answer, and nor should there be one.

"Should" is irrelevant. And if you were serious about thinking then you'd see the answer.

If there was, then I think that poetry and being a poet, or trying to be one, would have lost its essence.

Would you say the same about music, sculpture and other arts? And why the fact that there is a definition makes poetry lose its "essence". It's just the opposite. Once you realize what poetry is you're less likely to pass junk for poetry. This only enhances the meaning of poetry.

What about: "creating images and feelings in the reader's mind that are far more than the words themselves"?

It is off both on account of the images and of feelings. You are proposing something ad hoc, without an ear for the concepts, while I have presented a harmonious system. As I said, it is premature to start a discussion. The first (necessary!) step would be to ask questions in order to get a gist, or rather first glimpses, of the presented definition. Since you are not interested, your thread will end up in chaotic noise. Let me just say that it is the duty of the author to provide images (via words), and it is the duty of the reader to recreate those images. All this is still within the text of the poem, and it is not the goal of poetry. Say, in the case of a car, it is important, even necessary, that it sticks to the road, but it is not the goal. The goal is to get far.

When it comes to feelings, yes, it is a part of the poetic goal. However, it is enough to write that a dear family member suffered horribly from cancer to induce some feelings in most of the readers. But such a text is not necessarily a poem. Without the whole system, the isolated claims about poetry have a very limited value, they will often mislead or even do more harm than good. You have to balance the "foundation" against the "goal", and it has to be controlled by the artistic "ethics".

So why did Coleridge (the Samuel Taylor variety) say that poetry is no more than "the best possible words in the best possible order"? Oh sure, you could say that poetry has moved on since the late 18th and early 19th century,

Yes, there was both regress and progress. It's not too important in the context of the meaning of poetry. After Chinese and Basho hardly anybody had the intellectual strength to tackle the problem. Unfortunately, it was not in the Chinese style to formulate general principles. They were teaching via examples. Skalds didn't bother with any formulation of general concepts at all. They were only preoccupied with creating forms and with writing beautiful, wonderful poems. Lesmian and Mandelstam said interesting things about poetry. Ezra Pound is responsible for the modern )) understanding of poetry among Anglosaxons but he was nowhere near as profound as Chinese and Japanese. He was able to skim just abc without the background, without the base. He did try to understand and promote the Chinese and oriental poetry but somehow he didn't manage to understand it. Strange? But natural.

but there are (many?) poems before then that I would certainly say go much further than "the best possible words in the best possible order". You could also argue that he was writing rubbish at that moment because he was stoned most of the time, but when he was stoned is undoubtedly when he wrote some of his best work that was and still is far more than his own description of "the best possible words in the best possible order".

Creating under influence is an interesting topic, which is outside the scope of this thread--unless, as the owner of this thread, you decide that actually this is a different thread.

So... perhaps the question should have been: "What, in the minds of those who write poetry here, should a poem be?

Ditto. Psychology until now was outside the scope of this thread. I can tell you that rabbits are making love in the heads of the participants of this forum.

OK, if all you want is to argue for the sake of arguing, I am done. Good luck.

 

[champagne1982]

I can tell you that rabbits are making love in the heads of the participants of this forum.

OK, if all you want is to argue for the sake of arguing, I am done. Good luck.

I can't see for the bunny splooge in my head. Dirty, fucking rodents.

 

[hmmnmm]

Too few people too long ago took it upon themselves to define too many things.

 

[Tzara]

I can't see for the bunny splooge in my head. Dirty, fucking rodents.

Rabbits are lagomorphs, not rodents.

And thanks a bunch, Champie. I haven't had lunch yet and you have now tattooed the phrase "bunny splooge" on my cortex.

Ick.



At least you didn't say "runnels of bunny splooge." Oh, wait. I just did.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

I've always liked this one, from Babette Deutch:

A poem cannot be paraphrased without injury to its meaning.

bijou

 

[Chamella]

I was trying to talk about this last night. Came up with: Poetry is an emotional state frozen in time by word pictures. At least, that what it is to me.

 

[Sara Crewe]

I was trying to talk about this last night. Came up with: Poetry is an emotional state frozen in time by word pictures. At least, that what it is to me.

If it was me, I would not want to think about my writing as being 'frozen'. I might want to evoke a certain emotion but I would hope that whatever it was would have a much greater resonance than any one particular moment. I think about it like throwing a stone in the water. The emotion evoked and the moment described is like the first ringed ripple but if that ringed pattern does not continue out to the shore than my poem has failed.


I fail a lot.

 

[Liar]

Thanks for the rest of your answer but no, that first part quoted above is not it at all. I'm sorry if I haven't made myself clear. I have my own idea of what poetry is, and personally I strongly believe that there IS no absolute definition. Which doesn't mean to say that for others there may well be an absolute they are aiming at. Why might you say, as I do, that my piece of formatted text is not a poem? Or do you disagree? Do you agree that Coleridge's definition of poetry is way off line?

What, in summary, are you trying to do when you write a poem? What "formula" (as you put it) works for you?

I'd say your piece of formatted text is a poem. It consciously uses poetic devices (the line breaks, the content structure, the repititions, et al) as means to say something more than what the mere words convey. Maybe not a very good poem (since it doesn't say very much more), but that's another discussion.

Or actually... it's not a poem. Because there is no such thing as a poem. I think it's fallacious to talk about poetry and prose as nouns. They work much better as adjectives. Instead, we should talk about text. Text can be poetic or prosaic. More or less of each.

Consider this...

Rhymes, tropes and other kind of textually mnemonic devices.
Extensive and explicit use of metaphor, metonymie and other repesentative devices.
Attempts to control tempo, rhythm and pacing my means of prosodic devices and graphical presentation (like line breaks).

All these are attempts to communicate more to the reader than the mere content of the words. If it's not poetry, ask yourself; what is it? Because prose it is not. Those are not prosaic elements to text.

Maybe every attempt at doing this is not poetry, according to most people's definition. (IMO, I think it is, but often BAD poetry.) I can live with that. I don't need to be a poet and I don't need to have the stuff I write called poems. If what I write don't fit the poetry standard, then screw the poetry standard.

Then I'm not a poet. I'm a text artist.

Edit: posts crossed: Yes, about Coleridge. Was that what he actually meant, do you think?

Probably not. That's more in the vein of Aristotele. Coleridge was a bit too much of a pretentious fart sometimes to consider that there are other contexts than his.

 

[hmmnmm]

I have the right as a human being to call anything poem or poetic. Every person on the earth has the right to disagree.
I can call my dog a cat or a fish, then call him a dog again tomorrow.

What's the big deal?

 

[Liar]

What's the big deal?

Who said it's a big deal?

 

[hmmnmm]

Who said it's a big deal?

Nobody yet, as far as I know - but I know so little.

 

[sandspike]

If it was me, I would not want to think about my writing as being 'frozen'. I might want to evoke a certain emotion but I would hope that whatever it was would have a much greater resonance than any one particular moment. I think about it like throwing a stone in the water. The emotion evoked and the moment described is like the first ringed ripple but if that ringed pattern does not continue out to the shore than my poem has failed.


I fail a lot.

That resonance is rhythm. That rhythm becomes visual in the reader's mind. Crewe, must of what I have read of yours reaches the shore.

 

[Sara Crewe]

Well, I dunno 'bout the shore but I am happy that it reached the Sand a few times.


Thank you.

 

[FifthFlower]

If it's not poetry, ask yourself; what is it? Because prose it is not.

To make this distinction one needs minimally three pigeon-holes: prose, poetry and none-of-the-above. And to avoid fighting, one needs to just find it amusing how someone else would partition the bookstore, because it really doesn't matter. Being in one category or the other does not imply any superiority.

In my case, any metrical writing would be poetry, even if I don't like it: nursery rhymes, doggerel, Chaucer, Dante.

In prose I would put Gone With the Wind and the tradition of readily understandable free verse (AKA prose-with-line-breaks) that I associate initially with Bukowski and that contains Collins, Addonizio, Oliver, Stern and Mattie Stepanek.

In the none-of-the-above pigeon-hole would go photography, graphic novels, sheet music and Ezra Pound's Cantos.

But that's just me.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

Funny stuff.

I guess that in that case, I'd say poetry is anything written in bold size 4 light pink scriptC, even if it's a city council announcement. Prose is anything with a ratio of e's per total letters superior to 7%. None-of-the-above would be anything with less than 7% of e's and/or bold size 4 light pink scriptC with more than 7% e's.

 

[Liar]

Funny stuff.

I guess that in that case, I'd say poetry is anything written in bold size 4 light pink scriptC, even if it's a city council announcement. Prose is anything with a ratio of e's per total letters superior to 7%. None-of-the-above would be anything with less than 7% of e's and/or bold size 4 light pink scriptC with more than 7% e's.

There once was an old man from Esser,
Who's knowledge grew lesser and lesser.
It at last grew so small,
He knew nothing at all,
And now he's a college professor.

By golly, you are right.

 

[Picodiribibi]

I watched the documentary on Charles Bukowski (Bukowski: Born into This) late last night on the cable television. Never really had the inclination to read his poetry until today. (She took all my Bukowski--including Love is a Dog from Hell, which I never had the chance to crack--with her when she moved to LA; she left the Chaucer. Smart girl.)

Anyways, I'm taking the time on this day off work (I'm trickydickyphobic) to read some of his poetry. And I come across this


I don't really agree with the guy. I like that CB's poetry is prosaic--he's a great storyteller.
What do you all think? Does Bukowski's style detract from the impact of this poem?
Is less more or is this guy chipping away at David?