Poetry is ______________
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by Mr. Quale on January 29, 2010
Previous post: Vonnegut’s Crusades
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Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.
— J.L. Borges
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
awesome.
…like grammer without rules. It doesn’t always have to make sense, maybe you want people to ‘read between the lines’, or maybe the poem is a collection of emotions. It can also be lyrical-there’s alot to poetry. Poetry is really broad, and there are a lot of options in poetry, but that’s what makes it so special.
…something a regular person wouldn’t find interesting, but appeals on so many levels to anyone else, it’s something that’s meant to be read aloud and analysed in an atempt to find it’s true meaning.
… like a work of art, that paints a picture in your mind and tells you a story that needs to be told. A poet shows you the emotions through the words of the poetry and wants you to either laugh or cry with him.
…like just normal words on a piece of paper but then is transformed once you put emotional and your thoughts into it.
…something that may portray a different meaning to the poet as to the reader, but what ever you you take away from it can be correct. It can be beauty, anger, jealousy, love etc even all of them in one. Sometimes it can have a hidden meaning only the poet knows, or it can be complete nonsense, but its all poetry.
…Something that must make the reader realize something. It may be something different from what the authour is trying to put across, or it may take the reader years to see the authour’s point. But the fact of the matter is that poetry is trying to put a message across…no mater how vague or clear, important or unsignificant it may be.
…is the expression of ones inner most thoughts put in to a form that tells a story. Poetry is vague because it forces the reader to form their own thoughts and theories about the topic.
Columns of breath and Neil Young songs and old timey ballads and the words that are spoken and sonnets and stories told by juglares and contributions of verse and simple chants and ancient arts and emotions (both tranquil and aggressive) and corridos and western haikus and Mexico City blues and waste lands and howls and confessions and digressions and pronunciations–I’m with Borges: poetry remembers that it was first a song.
…putting your feelings and thoughts on paper. You use poetry as a tool to express yourself, when you have difficulties saying those things to others.
…artistic and expressive writing that uses rhythm and emotion to stir the reader’s imagination.
Poetry is the oral translation of feelings and emotions that can make you think, laugh, happy, sad, angry, confused, etc. Poetry is never an instruction, maybe a suggestion, but in reality any oral thought meant to cause emotion, thought and feeling.
Poetry is art; full of imagination, creativity; someone’s feelings or personal encounters or even a made-up story; it’s one’s thought process in words.
I’m currently reading a book where Ginsberg describes the type of poetry that he tries to teach to his students:
“Poetry out of mind, in spontaneous and unrevised utterances. . . as in first thought, best thought.”
This reminds me a little of two of Kerouac’s “rules” for his spontaneous prose:
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
Poetry happens when exciting and emotional people say what they mean with no regard for grammar, syntax or punctuation. Scientists do this all the time, but then of course they are neither exciting nor emotional.
…like a vague story. It doesn’t need to get to the point, or even have a decisive point for that matter. Different people can have different interpretations; that is the beauty of poetry. Poetry should invoke emotions, it should be said out loud for it to truely flow. It should sound good so that the words are just as important as how they are said.