What
is Poetry anyway?
A
Mosaic of Responses
Read the following passages about poetry. Pick three comments you agree with strongly, two you disagree with, and
one that you're not sure about. Tell me a little bit about your choices.
1. Ezra Pound,
early twentieth century USAmerican poet
Here’s my paraphrase of what Ez
sez:
It’s useful to think about all
poetry as having three aspects though some poems emphasize one aspect more so
than others:
Phanopoeia
= description = the poem throws
images on the mind
Melopoeia
= musicality = the poem’s sounds
& rhythms evoke emotional correlations
Logopoeia
= mindfulness = the poem
stimulates thought (and feeling) in relation to the poem’s words & word groups
2. W’ei T’ai,
11th century Chinese poet
Whaddya say W’ei?
“Poetry
presents the thing in order to convey the feeling. It should be precise about
the thing and reticent about the feeling, for as soon as the mind responds and
connects with the thing the feeling shows in the words.
“This
is how poetry enters deeply into us. If the poet presents directly feelings
which overwhelm him and keeps nothing back to linger as an aftertaste, he stirs
us superficially; he cannot start the hands and feet involuntarily waving and
tapping in time, far less strengthen morality and refine culture, set heaven
and earth in motion and call up the spirits.”
3. Louis Zukofsky,
twentieth century US
American poet
What’s the news, Lou?
“I'll
tell you. / About my poetics— / music / speech / An integral / Lower
limit speech / Upper limit music.”
(from “A12” a poem)
Like
this:
Music
Speech
4. In a poem called “City Midnight Junk Strains” Allen Ginsberg, twentieth century USAmerican poet, says that Frank O’Hara, another twentieth century USAmerican poet, has a “a common ear for our deep gossip.”
In a
book called Quote Poet Unquote someone
named Liam Rector is credited with
the statement “Poetry is deep gossip.” Sadly neither Ginsberg nor O’Hara
is mentioned by Rector or the book’s editor, Dennis O’Driscoll.
Here are several more
statements about what poetry is from Quote
Poet Unquote book:
5. DAVID GASCOYNE, Stand,
Spring 1992
Poetry
is like a substance, the words stick together as though they were magnetized to
each other.
6. SEAMUS HEANEY, Sunday Independent, 25 September 1994
Poetry
is language in orbit.
7. YVES BONNEFOY, Times Literary Supplement, 12 August
2005
Poetry
is an act by which the relation of words to reality is renewed.
8. MARK DOTY, The Cortland
Review, October 2000
Poetry
is an investigation, not an expression, of what you know.
9. LEONARD COHEN, The Sunday Times
Poetry
is a verdict that others give to language that is charged with music and rhythm
and authority.
10. UMBERTO ECO, The Independent, 6 October 1995
Poetry
is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which
creates feelings.
11. CHRISTOPHER
MIDDLETON,
PN Review,
March-April 1993
Poetry
is language wrought by feeling and imagination to such a pitch that it enacts
and embodies the thing it says.
12. DAVE SMITH, Local Assays, 1985
Poetry
is a dialect of the language we speak, possessed of metaphorical density, coded
with resonant meaning, engaging us with narrative's pleasures, enhancing and
sustaining our pleasure with enlarged awareness.
13. JOSEPH BRODSKY, The New Yorker, 26 September 1994
Poetry
is a dame with a huge pedigree, and every word comes practically barnacled with
allusions and associations.
14. CAL BEDIENT, Denver Quarterly 39, no.
2, 2004
Poetry
is the eroticization of thought—psychic vitality.
15. MATTHEW HOLLIS, Poetry Book Society Bulletin, Spring
2004
Poetry
is... a kind of leaving of notes for another to find, and a willingness to have
them fall into the wrong hands.
16. CHARLES WRIGHT, Quarter Notes, 1995
Poetry
is language that sounds better and means more.
17. ANNE ROUSE, The Sunday Times, 28 January 2001
Poetry
is about the intensity at the centre of life, and about intricacy of
expression. Without any appreciation of those, people are condemned to
simplistic emotions and crude expressions.
18. FRIEDA HUGHES, The Guardian, 3 October 2001
Poetry
is a way of communicating a vast array of thoughts and feelings by
concentrating them into minimal, or even single, points which describe the
whole.
19. JOHN SIMON, Dreamers of Dreams, 2001
Poetry
is the meeting point of parallel lines—in infinity, but also in the here and
now. It is where the patent and incontrovertible intersects with the ineffable
and incommensurable.
20. DON McKAY, The Toronto
Star, 4 June 2007
Poetry
is language pointing beyond its own capacities.
21. HAROLD BLOOM, The Art of Reading Poetry, 2006
Poetry
essentially is figurative language, concentrated so that its form is both
expressive and evocative.
22. PETER FALLON, The Poetry Paper, no. 3, 2006
A poem
is words at work, on us and for us.
23. ÁGNES NEMES NAGY, A Hungarian Perspective, 1998
A poem
is partly grace, partly discovery, and partly a struggle to squeeze out a
little bit more, to conquer another foot of territory from the unconscious.
24. P.J. KAVANAGH, BBC Radio 3, December 1990
A poem
is an attempt to find the music in the words describing an intuition.
25. NUALA NÍ
DHOMHNAILL,
RTÉ I television, July 1995
A poem
is a smuggling of something back from the otherworld, a prime bit of
shoplifting where you get something out the door before the buzzer goes off.
26. WILLIAM H. GASS, The Georgia Review, Spring 2004
A poem
is like a ghost seeking substantiality, a soul in search of body more appealing
than the bare bones mere verses rattle.
27. CAROL ANN DUFFY, Out of Fashion, 2004
A
poem... is the attire of feeling: the literary form where words seem
tailor-made for memory or desire.
28. JAMIE McKENDRICK, The South Bank Show, October 1994
Every
poem is an answer to the question what poetry is for.
29. After I
thought I’d finished this collection I found this statement from Audre Lorde’s Power, Oppression and the Politics of Culture: a lesbian/feminist
perspective:
“For
women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.
It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and
dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea,
then into more tangible action.”
30. &, finally, this statement on
poetry by Paul Celan* is part of my
friend Pierre Joris’s email signature:
“The poem is the detour from you
to you; it is the route. It is also
the
route of language toward
itself,
its becoming visible and
mortal: wherewith the poem
becomes the raison d’être of
language.”
Celan was a
German-speaking Jew in Eastern Europe. He
survived World War II. His town in a place called Burkovina that was then
Romanian and now Ukrainian was first occupied by the Soviets and later by the
Nazis. He spent much of the war in Nazi-run labor camp. His parents were handed
over to the Germans and killed.
Umberto Eco said "Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings." I agree with this. I think poetry is meant to be written with feelings and not just words. Another that I liked was from Jamie McKendrick "Every poem is an answer to the question what poetry is for". I liked this one because Every poem that you read gets you to think a little differently every time. One last one that I agreed with was from Frieda Hughes "Poetry is a way of communicating a vast array of thoughts and feelings by concentrating them into minimal, or even single, points which describe the whole". I agreed with this one because I think poems say a lot in very little. One poem could be about multiple topics and feelings and toe each of us, we feel and understand different ones in the poem. One that I do not agree with is "Poetry is like a substance, the words stick together as though they were magnetized to each other." from David Gascoyne. I did not agree with this one because many poems that I have read and liked are choppy, not a magnetized flow. Another one I do not agree with is from Don McKay "Poetry is language pointing beyond its own capacities". I do not think that all poetry has to be complex. In poetry you can be straight forward just like when writing fiction. "The poem is the detour from you to you; it is the route. It is also the route of language toward itself, its becoming visible and mortal: wherewith the poem becomes the raison d’être of language.” from Paul Celan is one I do not understand. I kind of understood and agreed with it, but parts like, "route of language toward itself" I did not understand.
ReplyDeleteAgree:
ReplyDelete8. Poetry is an investigation, not an expression, of what you know.
I liked this quote because when you write poetry, there are many meaning to it. Unlike a story, you can think of the poem however you want to and “investigate” meanings that it might have. With a story, it tells you what it means.
10. Poetry is not a matter of feelings; it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.
I liked this quote because there are many different ways to write poetry with many different forms. Some poems give different people a different feeling within the language.
22. A poem is words at work, on us and for us.
Some people read poems for enjoyment and some read them for relief. I would say that this quote means that there are words within a poem that help us escape from reality and work on helping us.
Disagree:
6. Poetry is language in orbit.
I dislike this quote because poetry isn’t too random like being described. They all have meanings, but they are different to one another.
16. Poetry is language that sounds better and means more.
I agree with poetry meaning more, but I disagree with the language sounding better. Some forms of poetry are a bore to me and some sound nice.
Not Sure:
18. Poetry is a way of communicating a vast array of thoughts and feelings by concentrating them into minimal, or even single, points which describe the whole.
I’m not too sure about this quote because if you are trying to describe one whole thing into some minimal points, you might miss some things, but also keeping it simple is better sometimes, too.
One comment I agree with strongly, is number one since those are the qualities that seem like would be best in a poem. Poems can be very short, so description and mindfulness can give it better effects and musicality can make it easier and better to read. Another I agreed with was number 16, that poetry sounds better and means more. The musicality of poetry makes it pop out more, but it also can have a lot of meaning to it too. Another I liked was number 28, every poem is an answer to what poetry is for. I like it because every poem is different, and is written for a little bit of a different meaning, and has a different effect. Number 28 was the one I didn’t really like, since it said that every poem is the answer to what poetry is for, and I think poetry is for mostly just feelings, but every poem has a different way of showing it. Another I didn’t really like was number 5 about the words in poetry magnetizing to each other, because they don’t always in poems, and don’t always have to. The one I’m not sure about, is number 8, the way Mark Doty said that poetry is an investigation, not expression, since I think it is true, but it kind of seems like it could be both. I think an investigation sounds like a good way to describe some poetry, but it can also be an expression, depending on what it is trying to tell.
ReplyDelete3 I agree with:
ReplyDelete23. ÁGNES NEMES NAGY, A Hungarian Perspective, 1998
A poem is partly grace, partly discovery, and partly a struggle to squeeze out a little bit more, to conquer another foot of territory from the unconscious.
-I feel like this quote personifies poetry into a human being, and like a human being, poetry can be extremely complex, graceful, curious, and struggle. Humans, like the words on a page, can be discovered or discover and overcome. Our words are just like ourselves except written on paper and therefore should have personifications of our own human actions.
18. FRIEDA HUGHES, The Guardian, 3 October 2001
Poetry is a way of communicating a vast array of thoughts and feelings by concentrating them into minimal, or even single, points which describe the whole.
-This quote basically summarizes my own thoughts about poetry, which is why I like it. Poetry has the capabilities to be this big expansive set of emotions and ideas that are being related to almost anything and everything about the world. All of this can be compressed into a few lines or more, which is truly is spectacular and a very good definition of poetry to me.
15. MATTHEW HOLLIS, Poetry Book Society Bulletin, Spring 2004
Poetry is... a kind of leaving of notes for another to find, and a willingness to have them fall into the wrong hands.
-Yet again this quote displays another point of view of poetry that I can agree with. Poetry can be so complex and capable of personifying itself, but what really truly marks the reality of poetry (and all art forms) is to display it out for anyone to judge. Sometimes people fall in love with the poem and cherish it. Other times people don’t accept poems well, and consider them bad taste/trash etc. It is all up to the reader whether a poem is well responded to or not. It is taking a risk, which is true about almost everything in the universe.
2 I disagree with:
5. DAVID GASCOYNE, Stand, Spring 1992
Poetry is like a substance, the words stick together as though they were magnetized to each other.
-Although the idea is nice, the quote seems to almost off put the time and effort put into poetry to me. Words do, yes sometimes, magically get scrawled onto paper, but after that they are usually edited. Nothing stays magnetized to perfection on the first time.
21. HAROLD BLOOM, The Art of Reading Poetry, 2006
Poetry essentially is figurative language, concentrated so that its form is both expressive and evocative.
-Poetry is both expressive and evocative, but it can be elaborated more than just figurative language. Poetry can be more creatively depicted in a quote. There are so many angles to play on describing poetry and for me straightforward and basic is just not the way to really capture the essence of poetry.
1 I’m not sure about:
6. SEAMUS HEANEY, Sunday Independent, 25 September 1994
Poetry is language in orbit.
-The quote is all artsy fartsy, but the quote is also extremely vague. If the idea had been expanded upon it could go even deeper. Yet by keeping it short, it replicates ideas about poetry and can get the reader to think about the hidden meaning of the comparison between poetry and its relation to being “in orbit”.
11.) "Poetry is language wrought by feeling and imagination to such a pitch that it enacts and embodies the thing it says." I noticed that a majority of the quotes touch down on the idea that poetry is a language on its own or that it's a dialect and I like the way that sounds. Poetry is just so different that it's its own language. I think out of all the quotes this one expresses the "poetry being a separate thing" idea the best because it also shows that poetry isn't just words, it's also emotion which I strongly agree with. I believe that poetry for the most part is all emotion.
ReplyDelete15.) "Poetry is... a kind of leaving of notes for another to find, and a willingness to have them fall into the wrong hands." When something gets into the wrong hands you know that this thing has power, because if it didn't have power then there would be no "wrong hands." Wrong hands means that something or someone could harness the capabilities of this object because it has the power to do damage. Maybe I sound crazy, I don't know but I just like how it made poetry sound like it was a secret weapon and in the wrong hands, could make a nation think a whole different way. Poetry is now a secret weapon.
18.) "Poetry is a way of communicating a vast array of thoughts and feelings by concentrating them into minimal, or even single, points which describe the whole." I really like this one because again I agree that poetry is mostly thought and feelings and I think it sounds cool that so much of a persons thoughts, feeling and emotions can be packed into a sentence or in stanzas.
Disagree with
8.) "Poetry is an investigation, not an expression, of what you know." I really don't like this one. Poetry is chock full of expression. That's all poetry is. Sure there's investigation involved but that's not all poetry is. Maybe I just don't get what the person is saying but I don't like it.
28.) "Every poem is an answer to the question what poetry is for." I liked the idea of this quote but the more I read it the less I like it. It confuses me. I know what they're saying and it could be deep but it just falls short for me.
Not Sure
5.) "Poetry is like a substance, the words stick together as though they were magnetized to each other."
I agree with this but then in some ways I disagree. I think that in poetry words definitely have more power than in any other writing and they come together to create a mood that the author is trying to portray. I strongly agree with that aspect but what I disagree with is if they're trying to say that poetry always flows and the words fit together beautifully to make smooth transitions. I don't think you can generalize something so broad, such as poetry, in this way.