Is poetry pointless? Why are we attracted to it?

Question

My guess is that it allows us to see things in a new light.

Answer 1

Grasshopper...you can see from the many different replies you received that to some, it may "seem" pointless. However, I cannot personally imagine a world without it. For example, try to say what these simple three stanzas say in prose:

For ebb and flow will take the sand
And wash it off the drier land
For grain by grain does life depart
And this is truth to understand

For fame and failure seem as one
When all of life is said and done
For nothing may we take away
And left behind are all the prizes won

And only those behind who shed a tear
Are any proof at all we once were here
For stones with names have not a voice
Regardless how they may appear

...poetry paints a picture with words that conveys more than the words transmit literally. Additionally, if they do so in a memorable way, their meaning echoes inside of you until you believe you always knew that or felt that way too.

One more example of a poetic expression that is used time and time again: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." Again, try saying this in prose and see if you can explain so much with so little.

Pointless? Only to those who lack imagination.

Answer 2

It depends on the person. That sounds so clilche but I really think it does for a number of reasons. I could go with the easy one and say if you don't like it well you don't have a soul and you don't care to listen to what life could be like.

But I'll go a different way and say if you can. And if you can understand such things. There are people that probally think that means that if you got talent and that is a part of it. But the part of it is if you are of average intellgenice and that doesn't mean you have to be a genius but over all that means that you are not severally mentally retarded. Because there are going to be some people that are never going to be able to get or understand such concepts of allusions or meter or rythem or ryhme.

I think from that alone we are attratced to it is more along the lines that we can undestand these things. That we want to know that we are not the only ones that feel a certain way that we are not the only ones that are either happy or sad. Or that we want to recapture such feelings.

To call such a thing old and not worth saving is a little crazy to me. Just because we have this type of communication doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to come up with poetry. We stil do some of the same basic actions as homer doh! and other Socrates. we still eat sleep and go to the bathroom we still dream.

Poetry gives us answers and questions at the same time that's what some of the best poems do. So they do nothings and it is pointless if you have lived long enough not to have any need to improve I guess yeah they are useless not to rember how things used to be how things could be.

Answer 3

It isn't pointless. I think poetry is better than any other written material because of its ability to display a whole range of emotions in just a few words. I mean, one poem can express all the emotions in the entire world, depending on how well you can write it. I also think that the rhythm
of the poem sort of goes along with the rhythm of our lives as a whole as our hearts pulse and our blood flows. It's just so beautiful that it even makes plain rock music into a masterpiece! Have you ever heard a rock song with its words taken out? Didn't it sound kind of dull? The poetry found in the rock song made it beautiful and pleasant to the ear, not just the music itself.
Essays, novels, and newspaper articles are the words of the mind. Poetry is the word of the heart.

Answer 4

Of course not! Poetry is a highly valued source of literature, art, and feeling. Some people are attracted to poetry or poets b/c they put into words and imagery that we feel, but can't say just right...

Answer 5

poetry is dead. there are better forms of self-expression. Poetry was popular when there was no such thing as telecommunication. it wasn't pointless, just that it's too out-of-date and has changed into a very specific niche-topic.


this trend seems to be for beatniks only. and boy are those guys mean...

Answer 6

James Flecker wrote:
"Ah, if there shall ever arise a nation whose people have forgotten poetry or whose poets have forgotten the people... what of them?"

Hassan replies "They will be a dark patch upon the world"

Answer 7

Depends on who and what you read.
In poetry, some of us have a need.
Not to write, but in the mind, seed!

Answer 8

not pointless
.... like a song without the music
time given to an idea or expression

Answer 9

For those of us who write it is a must, a passion, a need to communicate, feel less invisible, to be understood.

For those of us who read, it is a must, a passion, a need to know somebody feels what we feel, sees us and understands us.

For those of us who both write it and read it, it is both.

For those of us who do neither, it's irrelevant.

Answer 10

Pointless??? Only to shallow minds.