Free To Be Poet Critic; theory of poetry Forum Poetic Tools Beat Emotions

Defining a poem is difficult, maybe even impossible, just as defining art is difficult. Nonethelss, I am ready to take this challenge and try to define a poem on my own.

The expression of one's point of view or mind (from affection to another person through philosophical ideas and finishing with political criticism) through a form of literary lines, consisting of several words each.

To me, a good poem is a sophisticated poem, using a variety of poetic tools and imagery, with more than one level of understanding. A good poem must also have something to say about the world we live in, or at least evoke a thought among the readers. Structurewize, a good poem has a music of its own, meaning it flows without sounding forced.

Now, regarding the title of this post - many people say that showing emotion is a crucial part in poem. I say that showing emotions is important, but not as important as using poetic tools and imagery.

 

I guess that generally sums up my point of wiew about poetry.

 

Take care,

Yoav

you're saying that defining a poem is difficult. not to get sophistic, but that must mean that it was easy for you to define it as not so difficult that you couldn't talk about poetry. it's not a question of what you like in a poem, or even that you like a certain poem, but that you can see that it "works" in some way, some perhaps inexplicable way. i like Hopkins, but i'm not religious and yet "God's Grandeur" is a wonderful poem to me. is it a paradox that my reading isn't controlled by the poem's "content"? i think not, because i think the actual content of a poem is its pattern and texture.

I don't mean to interrupt. But I couldn't help overhearing your conversation.

It's a common occurance, in the world of literary analysis, for people to start trying to define what makes a poem. We've all tried to do it at some point. Maybe we think it will help us to get to that magical place called beauty. Maybe.

I guess what I wanted to say first was that it might be more helpful to try to understand what makes a poem hard to define. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I do think it's hard.

You mentioned content. I think we can agree that every poem has something in it, but it might not be the pattern or 'texture' as you say, that is the most essential content of any particular poem.

Because, what do you mean by texture anyway? Is it the shape of the growth of ideas? The emotional content? I'm not sure.

The problem with knowing the content of a particular poem, is that only the poet was  witness to the content, and his attempt to translate it into words is the poem.

The poet is not always succesfull in his attempt.

So if we want to know that primordial content within all poems that all poems share, and then translate that knowledge into words, we might have some trouble. The truth of it is probably only going to come out through the poem itself.

Good luck in your attempt though.












"I am the one who will dance on the floor in the round." -Wacko Jacko

it's an open thread and wanting just the kind of imput you're giving. maybe the best thing would be for you to define what "content" means to you in a poem.

my idea of texture is the sound and color of the words. the content is secondary to that -- you can have a man buttering a slice of toast and make it seem like a fantasy or a documentary just in the way you use the words, the rhyming and consonant sounds? that he might be giving it to his boy friend or his wife or daughter or son is "content" filler. it's really, if it's a poem, about what this guy is to you, the author.

i got your idea, but i wanted to get into it more, cause i don't think the answer to what poetry "is" is simple. right now, i'm working the notion of "cliche'", and there is invention and there's cloning and rearranging "that is like a poem" is a kind of engineering but not conscious or felt poetry. the emotion thing is real and the motor of poetry, but the shape shifting is according to the writer. the writer is the only one that can write his own poem... ? and what comes down here in the pop poetry world is the writer using a template for pouring "feeling" into smooth word flows... lava or snot or whatever, and sometimes, when the author is fucked enough, tears and plasma. i'm maybe only right now trying to find a community for building a common history of talking about this kind of thing, for building a "culture", a set of shared experiences based on posts and comments.

interesting and perhaps the promise of a 'flower' of meaning here...

words are elastic. perceptions are varied based on the frequency, the beat, of the person reading/ryhming... my reflections are coloured by my urban/continental, space/time constructions, and my word/whimseys arise from these constructions and the ongoing efforts at applying myself with this Art of Wonder called Poetry.

at what point does the Poets work rise above the mundane to a 'Flower' of meaning that captures the ZeitGeist, creates the meme or even just arouses the common music binding us to Humanity?

what poetic tools? we use a wounded reasons form and ritual of language constructs that are 'agreements' and we make them 'objects' and move them around in ways that can make layers of 'impressions' seem to come alive in the reader; if we are skilled or perhaps just lucky.

The Poet can and does create 'meaning' webs with the syntactical alliances he scribes, and like the 'spider' awaits, feeling the rythms of wind playing on the 'web' and if he catches that 'meme' he has lunch, and the reader sups with the Poet. Most webs break and the web maker goes on to create more... spider made meanings - g:listening web wonders

most of what we do is 'ritualize' our word play to create a 'handle' for the reader to pick up the Poem... this very seldom takes the reader to a 'flower' of new meaning, but does gather the 'emotional' verbiage into pretty plastic collages... ach