Quote:
Originally Posted by TheBig3KilledMyRainDog
If this were a legal proceeding I'd be asking for the payment of my legal services. I'd encourage you to write your poem in case there's an appeal.
But enough jabs, What do you think constitutes poetry?
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Oh all right, I'll be serious. It's true, though, that I really am working on a unicorn poem/song!
I feel poetry is using words to express or inspire feelings, thoughts, or insights by describing them loosely or unusually enough such that readers have to use their own creativity to fill in the gaps and understand the meaning.
Poetry is like a dot-to-dot. The words are the dots and the reader has to connect them to see the meaning of the poem and the poet's intentions. The dots are not all numbered, so the reader has to have an open mind and try to pick out a meaning. There may be a variety of interpretations possible.
Here's a poem I wrote a while ago (as part of a song) to describe my view of poetry:
Quote:
Poet
I can trace your path:
your footsteps stir the dry leaves
on an autumn trail.
Your thought becomes mine,
this distant intimacy
poetry's beauty.
Each silent sentence
you share is like snapdragons
in my childhood.
I squeeze the flowers
to make them talk so we can
ponder this brief life.
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So, as this poem says, I feel poetry is like disturbed leaves on a path someone else has taken. The path is not always obvious, so you have to notice the details, the position of leaves, to see the thought path that the poet wants you to follow. Extracting meaning from the poem involves your own creative input...just like making snapdragons "talk" by squeezing them at their base to make the mouth move requires your interaction with the flowers.
Sometimes poems encourage audience participation by only describing one aspect of some subject, such that you have to imagine the rest, or by emphasizing the feel of the words themselves (the rhythm, the meter) to cause the readers to appreciate the sound of the words, which can add to the meaning. Short, clipped, harsh words may be used to describe anger, or soft, gentle words to describe peace. So, words in poems can be used like brush strokes in a painting. Again, these poetic elements require the readers to involve themselves more deeply and imaginatively with the words to extract meaning.
For example, if you notice, each stanza in the poem above is a haiku that can function separately. The poem itself is like a path in which you have to link these separate poems together to see that they are all about poetry. I tried to make the poem be like four separate leaves, guiding the reader on the mental path *I* take when thinking of poetry. Poetry makes me feel like I am a child again taking an autumn walk on a leaf-covered path and interacting with snapdragons I see growing alongside it. The stirred leaves on the path before me, the path itself, and the flowers someone planted (to be observed by another) are all part of what makes poetry drive away a feeling of existential loneliness. Poetry tells you that you are not alone.
Prose, in contrast, usually describes a scenario or thought more clearly and logically such that the reader moves sequentially and simply through the idea. The meaning of the prose is clearer, because the words' main function is to describe a thought as unequivocally as possible. If prose were a path, it would be one marked with a bright red line telling you exactly where to go.
For example, a newspaper article seeks to describe events so that readers can understand them concretely and easily without needing much outside knowledge or creative thinking.
Similarly, novels usually describe situations in concrete terms, though they may function on a poetic level when the reader has to seek a deeper meaning behind the surface descriptions.
What do *you* feel constitutes poetry?