VEGANGELICA

EDIT: Oops! I posted this before I read your previous post.

Poetry is not intentionally misleading. Instead, poetry requires the reader to use her imagination and her own creativity to understand the essence of the poem. I don't intentionally make poems vague, but instead I sometimes use metaphors that feel more to me like the subject than simply describing it matter-of-factly.

The plum poem *is* a poem according to my definition of poetry, which included this description: "Sometimes poems encourage audience participation by only describing one aspect of some subject, such that you have to imagine the rest."

For example, the poem about plums is not ACTUALLY about plums at all. It is about love of self and other, and the conflict between the two, and the feeling of needing to ask forgiveness of those we love when we know our self-interested choices hurt them. That is my interpretation, at least. So, missing from the poem is the actual subject of the poem. It symbolizes something deeper, and the reader has to identify the deeper message.

I brought up rhyming indirectly when I wrote, "Sometimes poems encourage audience participation 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. 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."

I didn't mention rhyming since it is one of many poetic techniques that cause the reader to appreciate the song-like qualities of poetry. By song-like I mean the words have a pattern and feeling to them. Rhyming words are like brush strokes that go in the same direction in a painting, or they are like the use of the same color in several parts of a painting to give it a feeling of cohesion.

Poetry makes me feel less alone than prose because the poet is trying to communicate the essence of something to me so that it grips my psyche in a personal way more than prose usually does.

I like poetry because it expresses the "human condition" and everyone can be a poet. I would be disappointed in poetry if only certain people could be considered poets. I definitely feel every person is/can be a poet, though some people may feel more moved to record their experience of living through words. I feel that categorizing people's written expressions as "poetry" or "not poetry" using a simple definition of poetry puts inappropriate limits on what is considered poetry. There may be poems you like more than others, but that doesn't mean the poetry you dislike isn't still poetry.

I call myself a poet because I've felt that way since I was 12 and first wrote haiku after reading old Chinese and Japanese haiku. I felt a strong connection to words, meanings, thoughts/feelings and the imaginative playing with those words to represent the writer's reality.

It sounds like you are saying what I argued much earlier in this thread: defining poetry limits people's ability to see and appreciate the variety of poetic expression methods that people use.

I basically agree with your definition of poetry above, except that some poems are pretty damn long (pages and pages) and some poems are probably simply playing with words/sounds rather than trying to refine some concept or experience down to its essence.

I don't expect poems to provide THE truth, but instead the truth as the writer views or feels it at that time. It sounds like you simply don't like poems about people's wounded feelings. Just because you find that subject trivial, overdone, or gushy doesn't mean the writings on that subject aren't poetry, I feel.

I do my best to feel every emotion I have about something! I sometimes write things that I feel are terrible writing as I write them...but when I've felt torn apart over someone and write about it, the poem at the moment usually feels very close to how I really feel, and I am not judging it harshly. I usually like it because the act of writing helps me process my feelngs and thoughts. At the time, it feels very right. Later, the poem amuses me. For example, I remember after the break-up of one college 2-year relationship, I wrote a poem that makes me cringe now because I dislike the neediness it shows and the triteness of the descriptions I used. Here's an excerpt:

So, when I read people writing similar stuff on MusicBanter, I sympathize with them. I know where they've been. I think their writing is sweet because it is how so many people feel during a break-up. Novel poetry? Probably not. But very human.

I disagree that one's proximity to emotion (when writing about it) clouds an essance of truth. But that's also because what is truth (in our perceptions) isn't just one thing. Someone (A) who is in love, for example, may view a person in a very different fashion than someone (B) who is not in love with that person. If both persons A and B write about the subject, the poems will probably be very different, but will both describe a valid truth.

I agree that SOME poetry can sting and is raw because it is the naked reality, but it sounds like you are constraining your definition of poetry based on subject matter. Some poetry does not sting at all. Some is gentle, caressing, commiserating, welcoming. Some is wistful, regretful, loving, resigned.

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