Should poetry deal with only moral and beautiful subjects, if not why; with examples?

Answer 1

The very fact that one of the greatest voices in lyrical and passionate poetry was excluded from the 1976 Oxford Book of Verse is indicative of the changes in what is acceptable for poetry.

Edna St Vincent Millay was a brilliant and gifted writer whose work resounded with passion and dazzling usage of words. But by the forties she was considered a cliche by poet/critics who thought poetry should be about obtuse and garbled ideas accessible only by a special few. Millay was one of the most widely read poets of the day until the poet snobs effectively silenced her voice. Her work covers the range of human experience particularly passion. We are a planet filled with myriads of different personalities as such, we require and should demand as many opportunities to voice our passion.

Answer 2

I think poetry should be uncensored, about any subject the author chooses to write. If we limit ourselves to only writing about the moral and beautiful things in this world, poetry as a genre will just become a series of sappy, glorified greeting cards. Life is not always beautiful, and it is not always pleasant, and I happen to know a lot of people who were particularly touched by poems that reflect some of life's ugly truths. Furthermore, I feel that poetry serves as a means to beautify that which we find ugly. Poetry can take unpleasant subjects like drug use, gang violence, and rape, and give voice to the plight of those who are involved in those things in a way that can take an ugly situation and somehow make it art. Censorship is never right- especially in writing.

Answer 3

No, it doesn't have to deal with only the moral and beautiful at all.

The thing about good poetry is that it can make even common, sad or depressing things sound "beautiful" in their own way.

Examples? Um...more appropriately would be what poet HASN'T written something that could be an example?

Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson all come to mind as poets who wrote poems that were sometimes morbid or sad sounding, and/or with commonplace/depressing subjects.

Answer 4

Morals and especially beauty are subjective so even if it was agreed that poetry should only deal with the moral and beautiful, there would never be a consensus on what could be categorized as such.

Answer 5

Hip hop and hyphy deal are a kind of "street poetry"; some of the subjects are anything but beautiful, yet they encompass life.
I think poetry should encompass life, with all its joy and pain.

See "Said the Shotgun to The Head" by saul Williams

Answer 6

I dont understand why people belive that we should only express the happier side of life. The world is not a happy place. The world is full of dark, depressing, morbid, creepy delusions. The world realistically is not all butterflies and happy thoughts with rain bows. No, the world is poverty and depression; fascination and horrid thoughts. Why should we not continue to make aware the fact that life is in turn an unwelcome place? Why should we write about things that we can not fathom when all we see is suffering?

Answer 7

Poetry is expression, whatever moves you.... it does not have to be moral or beautiful. Only the expression needs to be beautifully put to prose. But a poem if done can be about any subject, from death to sex.

Answer 8

I don't know where you got that idea from poetry is a form of expression you can use it to tell what ever type of story you want off of the top of my head i can't think of any examples of either but check out poetry.com they have libray of artist or L.hughes or Paradise lost

Answer 9

Poetry is a form of art and art by definition is something that moves you emotionally. We are moved by joy, fear, sadness, love, lust, and many more emotions. Great example of unhappy poetry would be Edgar Allen Poe & Emily Dickenson.

Answer 10

Writer in poetry express his own feelings, not only internal but external as well: in the rutine life, in the whole wold.