What is Poetry?
Typically, we might say something like “Poetry is a kind of literature,” but what does this mean in terms of the discussion we’ve just had about literature in general. Why are there different kinds of literature. How do you think these different kinds of literature came into existence? What are their uses? How about poetry in particular? Does it even make sense to talk about the “use” of poetry.
Added later: What did you thing of the poems we read in class — “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter,” by Ezra Pound & “Married Love” by Liz Rosenberg? Use comments to respond.
January 18, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
Ok, so personally i think that poetry is an escape from reality. From one of my favorite quotes, “I reject your reality and substitute my own”(Myth Busters). This is exactly what poems are. It is saying good by to the normal literary readings such as novels and informational articles. Poets have the ability to not pay attention to the structure of their sentences and can arrange the words and stanzas in anyway or desire. Poems are a way to say what you want in the way you want with out being criticized. It is like a loop hole in the system where anyone can be a poet, but very few become well known.
January 18, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
So, Patrick, I’m a big Mythbuster’s fan too, but when Adam says that, he is making a joke. And the joke works because one finally cannot substitute one’s own reality for the actual world. Poems, like anything, have to engage the world. One of the things that all literature does, including poems, is provide different perspectives on aspects of the world; they do this not by ignoring reality, but by — perhaps playfully, perhaps seriously — engaging with it. I would go so far as to say that poets do what Adam & Jamie do on the show. The push on reality to see how it works. Poems are experiments with reality & sometimes poems bust myths.
And I would respectfully suggest that your characterization of poetry as being free from having to “pay attention to the structure of their sentences” and that poets “can arrange the words and stanzas in any way or [they] desire” is simply, empirically, wrong. What about the two poems we read in class yesterday? The sentences in both are perfectly grammatical and use ordinary structure. In fact, poets often impose extra structures like rhyme & meter on their writing so that poetry, instead of lacking structure, is sort of hyper-structured. It is true — & this may be what you are driving at — that poets sometimes compress their language to the point where you have to pay close attention in order to understand it, but they do this through close & particular attention to grammar & structure, not by ignoring such things. Recall what I said about empiricism in class yesterday — you know, the scientist who wants to study rodents — so go out & catch yourself some poems & see if they fit the definition you have given above.
January 18, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
I think poetry is a great way to relax and take in your surroundings. I admit I was not a huge literature fan in high school, but I have enjoyed it in the few classes I have had in college. The poetry we read for the first day was very good. I enjoyed the Ezra Pounds piece because I could actually understand and feel what the poem was about. I was actually able to feel the woman’s feelings in the poem which made it very real and actually made me pay more attention to what the poem was saying.
January 18, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
I wanted to comment about Pound’s poem that we talked about in class. The one thing that i found most interesting about the poem is the tone. We commented as a class that the author is sad, but she is not ripping her hair out with anticipation of her husband’s return. I think that the last two lines in the poem sum up the overall tone and feeling of the writing. “And I will come out to meet you As far as Cho-fu-Sa”. That writing makes you feel like she wants her husband to come home but she is not going to travel to the ends of the world to find him. I think that the author may have married her husband against her free will. She has grown to love her husband and obviously misses him, hence the poem, but does not long for him the way one would expect.
January 19, 2007 @ 8:11 am
To me poetry is almost like a zip file on a computer. A zip file has a given file or program stored in it but its compressed to save space. Poetry is almost like this, some meaning or thought is stored in this small amount of words and much like a zip file it takes a program (our creative mind) to unwind the meaning of the poem. I agree with Zach in that “poetry is a great way to relax and take in your surroundings”. Poetry also teaches us about our cultures past and even a peak into the future.
January 19, 2007 @ 3:35 pm
I must confess I’m much more fond of ancient and medieval literature than the modern kind, and it’s interesting to me that much of the stuff written ‘back in the old days’ (at least the stuff I’m familiar with) was poetry with very structured rhyme and rhythm. Forms were standardised and traditionalised, making poetry practically a science. Welsh bards could recite englyn after englyn, Icelandic skalds mastered the ljóðaháttr, and sonnets were the common tongue of the Renaissance courtesan. Today, the canon has been expanded to include forms of poetry much less strict in their organisation. The meter has lost some of its function as the written word has replaced oral recitation as the main medium of poetry. Before writing, it was much easier for an ancient bard to memorise a highly structured and metrical poem than a less organised one. The ancient poets put a lot of time and effort into their works, and there’s a wealth of tradition behind them, but while there’s plenty of excellent modern poetry out there, much of it seems a lot more casually put together, and consequently less valuable (in my opinion) than the carefully and meticulously constructed poetry of days long by. We’ve lost something primal and magical in the rhythmic voice of the bard reciting by the fireside that can’t be duplicated by ink and paper; something that those early writers tried desperately to capture and all poetry seems to echo. That’s my spiel, anyway. Feel free to dismember me in whatever way seems fit.
January 19, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
Right, Tim. Technology makes a big difference. When a culture’s whole literature had to be carried in the head, there were specialists emerged who could do that. In this sense, meter itself is a technology for making language easier to remember. Once writing & then printing emerged, this technology became less crucial. Poets were then free to explore other aspects of language.
January 19, 2007 @ 10:56 pm
[...] That’s what I asked my Intro to Lit students on Wednesday. They had read the Norton Introduction to Literature’s exposition of the subject, but the five or six students who have replied so far haven’t taken much cognizance of what the Norton’s editors say. Instead, they seem to be channeling some kind of cultural knowledge. [...]
January 21, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Way back in the years of high school, i was once told to not read the poetry, but to feel it and visualize it. There are aspects to poetry that go beyond the eloquent use of words. They author has a picture whether it is real or imaginary. I can argue that poetry is not an escape from reality. If one was to go to a cafe where there are poetry readings, one could see that there are people expressing their lives through eloquent use of words and other methods in which to excite listeners. They are not escaping reality, what is reality but what we make of it. In some way these people are shaping their lives in a poetic manner. So back to what is poetry. Poetry is art. Poetry is life. Poetry is that which goes on beyond our control, such as nature. POETRY IS EVERYTHING. It is important for the creator to incite imagination in viewers and to let readers understand what they are saying and why.
January 21, 2007 @ 11:46 am
Poetry is a way of looking and feeling the world around us. Things that people don’t usually think about are brought to our attention in a thematic manner. Poetry is able to take the world we know and draw connections and similes to other experiences. Instead of just reading the words, we feel them and understand that there is more to the world then meets the eye. Authors are able to take us out of our own lives by explaining an experience of someone else and the situations they are faced with. I feel like poetry is a way of feeling for other people and in a world full of self serving behaviors, poetry is humbling.
January 21, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
I agree with Tim I too enjoy ancient poetry. Many famous poems where written way back for entertainment reasons, and for preserving a culture in which they where developed in. The old way of standardization is gone but with anything old gone new and maybe even better poetry may arise. Who knows centuries after our little blog about poetry maybe they might use standardize forms only again and they will say the poems today shouldn’t ever had a cannon. That’s the neat thing of literature old pieces of work may be re-examined in the future with a different perspective.
January 21, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
Literature is meant to be engaging and emotional. It is designed to cause the reader to think about the intentions of the author and the message of his story. It’s almost a way of learning through other people’s stories and feeling the emotions that they feel. It’s creative and it’s thoughtful. Literature allows you to see the world through completely different perspectives.
January 21, 2007 @ 2:44 pm
I think that poetry is like a chameleon that can change the body colors to the colors of its background. Poetry delivers very different meanings to different people depend on their feelings and circumstances. We may not think that everyone got same feeling about a poem when we read it together. When people read poem, they feel differently and find the meaning of poem differently. Their experiences and feelings may lead people deep into the poem and give great impression. Some of people may have not any impression from it because their feelings, memories, and experiences cannot be the same. If other literatures bring people into the story such as drama and fiction, poetry goes into people’s feelings, memories, and experiences and makes people to remember any special moments, feelings, and experiences again. I think that is the strength of poetry.
January 21, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
I agree with Patrick Cullinane when he states that poetry is an escape from reality. Poetry comes in many forms and, like in our first reading, your understanding of poetry is based on your person experiences and relations to the poems at hand. Furthermore, I believe that poetry is a way to keep your brain active and aware. Poetry is outside the box and to understand it, is to take it apart piece by piece. Poetry isn’t always right in front of you; you have to search deeper if you want to know the true meaning of the words you are trying to process. Poetry, like a puzzle, explores how the combination of minute pieces fuse as one to create the big picture. Poetry, like all other things, is complex.
January 21, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
Poetry seems to, for the most part be far more relaxed. Of course there are the haikus and such which are based on strict structure. Poets do not have to fill in every connecting word. They don’t have to be as concerned with punctuation. With those ideas kind of put aside poets are able to create the rythmic schemes which help to connect, or breakup depending on the point of the poem, the work itself.
January 21, 2007 @ 8:38 pm
I found both poems to be pretty depressing in their own way. The tone in “A Letter” was rather solemn- she was clearly aching for her husbands return. The narrator seemed kind of numb, almost emotionless. On the other hand, the narrator of “Married Love” starts out with “flaming” passion. In the end, however, the tone gets pretty depressing because we realize that her husband is not the one that makes her burn with passion. The two are also different in the sense that the river-merchants wife initially did not love her husband and fell deeply in love with him over time. In contrast, the narrator of “Married Love” has actually fallen out of the passionate, exciting love with her husband over time. She probably wouldn’t be too sad if her husband left for a bit and she had time with the gas attendant she fantasized about…
January 22, 2007 @ 10:16 am
I think that literature is very broad. Literature to me consists of the entire spectrum of writing, from lyrics to movie scripts, an essay to a thesis, nursery rhymes to sonnets, and etc. Different kinds of literature came into existence because of simple desires. People began to find different ways they express themselves, this is why there are so many different types of literature, which in turn give us so many genres of movies and songs. Poetry is unique to say the least. With poetry, we generally see a composition that is short, with concise elevated thoughts. No words are wasted, and each sentence has a profound meaning, real or abstract. This enables the author to develop complex ideas that are usually only revealed by analyzing the poem word by word. I think the best quality of poetry is that more often than not, there is no right or wrong interpretation, two people can read the same poem and have complete opposite ideas.
January 22, 2007 @ 10:47 am
Nikki is correct they both seem depressing each in their own way. The poem “A Letter” seemed like she was isolated from others too. Also if you look at the way the poem is structured you will see that as it begins she is young and full of hope and as she ages her hope dies off.
January 22, 2007 @ 10:47 am
I whole heartedly agree that literature is very broad, which makes sense as to why it is necessary to try and categorize some of the different genres and styles. However, even when categorized the genres themselves are vast and can blend into each other. My personal view of poetry is that it is the most artistic of all forms of writing. Poetry, like art, can paint the portrait of a person, beautifly illustrate scenes of nature, or depict things unfamiliar to most. It can be very clear and obvious in its meaning or be purposefully abstract with the intentions of raising questions or expanding one’s mind. It can focus on the simplicity of a single, still object or show scenes of complete chaos or complexity. It can adhere to and follow strict rules and guidelines of how the picture should be painted or be completely unconventional and challenge what is acceptable. In this sense, poetry parallels art in so many ways. Even in how people throughout history have fought over what is art and what is poetry, whos work matters or doesn’t at all. How do you classify the limitless? Poetry is painting with words.
January 22, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
I really liked the poem, “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter,” by Ezra Pound. I’m not sure that I liked that poem because I have similar cultural background or just liked it. I could feel her feelings and her respect to her husband. Many men went to liver, sea and other states for the business and many people worked in danger and died. There were also many women who waited their husbands to come home safely. Brian said that “she is not going to travel to the ends of the world to find him.”, but I believed that women at that age believed that waiting calmly until their husbands come to home was a way of showing their strong loves for and respecting their husbands. If they were not waiting and tried go to find their husbands, they would not take care of their home and children which was only works they had to do at home for their husbands. Other people might say that women are hasty and rash. Even though she expressed her mind passively that she loved her husband and tried to control and hide her mind, but I could fully see that she misses her husband so much and feel that she loves him in the letter.
January 23, 2007 @ 6:49 pm
To me poetry is a way to experience feelings in the world around us. To me it seems as though poetry is a way to cut all the bull and get straight to a writers thought and feelings. Poetry is all about expressing ones self but doing it in a way that may make sense to some and then none to others. To some reading a poem is just about reading the lines, to others it is the chance to uncover a story that is written beneath the lines.
February 5, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
When I think of poetry, I generally think of a type of literature that involves structure to the words and usually has several interpretations to what the poet is trying to get across. It almost seems that poets can secretly mask a personal life event through poems which may be interpreted completely different to the person reading the poem. Poetry can provoke different feelings in people depending on the type of words chosen, the rhythm of the poem, or the events described. Sometimes a poem can have a significant impact or be relevant to somebody if there are similar events in the poem and the readers life. When I took a poetry class in high school, I found out that writing ‘good’ poems can be extremely difficult. It takes serious time and thought to use so few words to try to describe your inner feelings. Again though, poetry is full of different interpretations. Not everyone is going to enjoy every poem.
February 5, 2007 @ 9:34 pm
Reading “The River-Merchant’s Wife” made me quite relaxed in an almost depressed but hopeful way. The merchant’s wife, who was married at fourteen, has been with her husband for two years, and then he leaves. Who really knows where he’s going, except that he went ‘into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,’ and it’s hard to say exactly why he’s going. Maybe at this time in history, this was common for the type of culture, but it’s hard to intepret directly from the poem. All along, the poem is never exciting or active, it is very somber and almost makes the reader feel a slight bit of sorrow for the merchant’s wife. She is all alone now, or so it seems, and is still young, waiting for her love to come back into her life. I can almost imagine her looking out the window every moment she thinks about him, hopeing he’ll be there. And she will go as far as she can go to be with him, ‘as far as Cho-fu-Sa.
February 7, 2007 @ 11:44 am
I would agree with most who have said literature is a very broad subject. So i find that categorizing it is very helpful because the various kinds are very different from each other. Poetry in my opinion is a way for the author to write their feelings, emotions, and senses of the world around them in a very short and almost secretive way. I say secretive because when you read a poem it can usually be interpreted several different ways which im sure is noticed in class. I tend to think that poems are often mis-read from the way the author meant it to be, however that is part of the beauty of poetry. Each word holds lots of expression towards the overall goal of the poem, and when read slightly differently the poem takes on a whole different form.
February 7, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
I think new types of literature enter into the public sphere due to the general tendency of becoming tired of the same ol’ same ol’. That is, I think there are many different forms of literature already present, but some won’t become popular, until the the current forms have been “milked,” for lack of a better word, for all they are worth.
I think its funny, because just as certain poems are rejected and not given their due, because they are violently opposed to the general view, or are founded upon some undeniably flawed reasoning, or aren’t structured perfectly, or aren’t effectively communicating a point, or aren’t serving as catalyst to a different way of thinking, so also are certain types of literature rejected because the form is new, perhaps controversial and insulting to the more popular, and perhaps harder to produce, forms of literature.
It seems to me that works of literature most often are a means for self-expression, be it of a general style of approaching life, or of a personal conviction, or of a painful experience, or of an ability to craft a set of words in a manner that puts across any random idea in a new and unique way, or etc. Sometimes works of literature are written to ease personal tension, but it seems that a majority of literary works come to be from a distinct desire to put across an experience, or an idea in a way that can be understood, and appreciated. Well, I suppose that having a literary work appreciated would have a calming effect on the creator, if not for feeling that their thoughts are just, then for the fact that their efforts and products are being acknowledged, positvely.
February 16, 2007 @ 9:53 pm
Human has mainly two types of thinking. The one is logical, rational, reasonable, and practical, but the other one is emotional, sentimental, illogical, inconsistent, and instant. I think this difference applies to different kinds of literary genres. Of course I know literature itself is not much logical though, I believe the most illogical one is a poem.
Writing a novel, play, or drama, it is necessary to organize the entire structure systematically, such as inevitability, probability, the connection among happenings, personality of characters, and so on. Unlike those sorts of literature, however, poem doesn’t need to be stuck in a particular form, except some classical ones. In other words, poem is informal more or less. For this reason, when people want to express something powerful, sensational, or momentary, they mostly use poems.
In conclusion, we can feel free to show our own thoughts without any specific frame by writing a poem. That’s why we need poems.
February 21, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
Before taking this class my exposure to poetry has been limited to the few poems I had to read in elementary, middle and high school. Having been in this class now for a little over a month and having focused mainly on poetry I feel that I am more easily able to answer this question than I did before the class started. The Norton book tells us “poetry is about feeling’; I whole-heartedly agree with this. I often find that I can’t help but start reading aloud the poems assigned; reading them aloud brings so much more of the feeling and meaning out of poems.
I believe that in the first comment, Patrick C. stated that poety is “an escape from reality.” While in some poems this may be true, I think that they may seem as an escape from reality simply because many of the poems we read are written in different time periods with words that we don’t understand. That aside, I would argue the opposite, that poetry is “an escape” into reality; many of the poems that we have read thus far in the semester are about reality; they may use extensive metaphors, similes, descriptions, etc, but more or less they’re mainly about some reality, it may not be a reality that we know, but a reality at the time of the poem being written.
March 5, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
I never read American poetry before I came to America. In fact, I found it is the most difficult literature work to understand. However, getting to know more about poetry, I realized it is actually pretty interesting.
I think poetry makes reader think more into what poets mean than other type of literature. I love Chinese poetry because it can express so many emotion in couple sentences. English poetry did the same thing, sometimes indirectly.
The original poem of “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” is one of my farvorite poems. When I first read the “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” I felt a little weird in English.
The situation and meaning is kind of change. It is very interesting.
April 28, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
“How do you think these different kinds of literature came into existence? What are their uses? How about poetry in particular? Does it even make sense to talk about the “use” of poetry.”
I think that literature has always been around as a way allow people to express their feelings and record information they wanted to keep or carry on. Literature has obviously been around for a long long time, but it has clearly changed over time. The adoption of plays allowed for them to be written down in the form of ‘literature’ and they have been changed and modified by many different people. Poetry on the other hand seems like a way for people to express feelings or experiences close to themselves but in ways, it can be interpreted as the reader chooses. There is no right or wrong interpretation of poetry. As for the use of poetry, I think that it is a way for people to exercise their brains and use as a way to entertain themselves. Poetry enlicits different emotions in people which can make them either pleasing or disturbing to read.
May 1, 2007 @ 10:14 pm
I think poetry has evolved over time and there are many ways to define what is poetry. Poetry started out as an art form meant to be sung or recited; because of this it originated with a certain meter and rhyming scheme. I think modern poetry is much more about the artistic expression and even creativity of the poem. Much modern poetry doesn’t follow any rhyming pattern, and some poems push the limits of proper punctuation and grammar in an effort to convey a particular emotion or point. Even though some modern poetry still follows traditional patters, such as much of the poetry that has made its way into the cannon, i think the underlying connection between all poetry is the attempt to convey a complex emotion or feeling through the artistic use of words.