Poetry is... What do you think poetry is???

Question

I am doing a survey, i do not care if your answer is long but explain yourself "why'' please!!!

Answer 1

I stand by Wordsworth's definition - the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling recollected in tranquility.

In terms of form, I think poetry is a type of literature that uses language in interesting and evocative ways to express a feeling or an idea.

Answer 2

To me poetry is, or at least should be, above all else evocative. By that I mean that poetry should make you *feel* something. Poetry may not always tell you a lot, you may not learn anything by reading it per se, but when you read it you experience the emotions and feelings that the author is trying to convey to you.

One of the earliest examples of poetry I've heard of is an Egyptian love poem; someone (a woman?) writing to their beloved, saying "when I am near you, I am near to death". I may be paraphrasing it, I heard it a long time ago... but the impact remains. How deeply this person must have felt!

When editor Thomas Higginson asked Emily Dickinson to define poetry, this is what she said: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"

To me, poetry has the ability to say things that normal language simply can't - it can point to those vague, turbulent, turmoiled emotions that we experience and clarify them, help us relive them, accept them, experience them for others' sake. Poetry is communication, not simply "art for art's sake" in my humble view. Poetry is the act of making someone feel something they may have never felt before, or making someone remember a feeling they had thought they had forgotten.



Saul

Answer 3

Certainly on an individual basis, everyone so far deserves 10 points, or a thank you comment at least.

Poetry is probably as intimate an expression of ones self, and loving, as sexual intimacies are, or should/can be.

Obviously there are purists (no offense) who define style, type, metre, rhyme, verbage, spelling; etc., in the senses of poetic ettiquette; and that's fine. One of my all time faves...Elizabeth Barret Browning; lived a short, intense life, and often held her work for as long as 10 years in re-writes, before satisfied enough to submit a piece.

For me, "Poetry"/ Prose/ Verse/ any recorded thought, might still suit "me" even if I "Color outside the lines."

The fact that "I GET IT" is far more valuable to me, than judgements. Certainly that might not directly equate to income derived, but I'll share an old quote.

"There is no money in poetry; but on the other hand, there is no Poetry in Money either"

Expressing ones emotions, no matter how; especially in the written word, is very often a very private sense, brought to the public. So much more often, poetry is born of sadness, loss, pain, anger, etc., and to record it can be theraputic, even healing,,,and who among us should judge that?

Poetically? Romantically? Poetry is the essence of our soul, exposed... Just my two cents.

Steven Wolf

Answer 4

Well I would call that first answer poetry... it's really deep lol. But I view poetry as a way to escape from the real world by pouring out my emotions into words.

Answer 5

For me, poetry is a way for me to say the things I cannot normally say. Poetry is a form of escape. I can be real in my poetry; I'm not afraid of saying anything that people may not like.

Answer 6

If penned in truth and with candor, real poetry does not require rhyme and is the most pure form of documenting history

Answer 7

Poetry is an extention of myself. It's the cord I plug into the wall to give myself the energy to just exist in this personal hell that is my life.

Answer 8

an artistic expression of emotion or knowledge through words..it can save your life, or **** you off, but it always stirs something