Thread: What is Poetry

Coleridge said that while prose is the right words in the right order, poetry is the best words in the best order.

I would suggest that line breaks are even more important in free-verse, get them wrong and you can destroy the poem. A sudden break can leave a thought dangling to very good effect, it can make enjambments even more telling. If you think line breaks are capriciously arbitrary, you're doing it wrong.

Originally Posted by Baron

Does calling a piece, no matter how amusing or readable, which uses no poetic device, a poem mean that it's a poem?

A very elitist attitude.

The only poetic device required by a poet is the ability to put words on paper. The ability, when required, to use the carriage return before the line has reached the opposite side of the page. Poets don't have to use alliteration, don't have to use enjambment, don't have to use any particular poetic device, poetic devices are not compulsory, they are tools, options available for use when wanted or needed.

It is not the business of anybody to tell poets what they must or must not do; if it were we would only have one poetic genre, ee cummings would be banned, there would be no room for a Stevie Smith or a Larkin; Betjeman would have been outlawed as impossibly trite, Charles Olsen condemmed for his idiosyncratic typographic layout.

There is room for all who consider themselves to be poets, it is not our job to tell them that they are not.

Poet are poets, and answerable only to themselves...

Ernest Hemmingway said that the best short story he ever read was this one:

For sale.
Baby shoes.
Never worn.

Is that not a short story because it does not cover several pages, is it too short? Or does it completely fulfill the requirements of a story, short or long? It does for me - as far as I'm concerned it tells me all I want to know about a family tragedy. A poem does not have to meet with your approval to be a poem, or indeed, mine, it just has to meet with the approval of the poet.

Poetry is the pugilist who punches with sweaty words till you fall to your knees and bleed. It's when you bleed you feel most alive in the arena of a beige life.

Poetry is the old woman who knits soft yarn words onto a page you can never tear. It's when you smile you feel most alive in the dark parlor room of life.

Poetry is a thief of breath.


moi

I must say SilverMoon defined poetry so elegantly...Peace...Jul

How about; "bringing the experience of reality within a structured verbal form" ?