A Few Things You Always Wanted to Know about Poetry and forgot to ask

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Originally Posted by Antiquarian

I don't really have a personal definition for poetry, Virgil. I do think poetry has to begin with an idea, though. Poetry is even more focused than the short story, but not much.

I think the most important element in any poem is the idea, not the rhyme, meter, structure, etc. By idea, I don't mean content or topic, such as "a tree." I mean the actual idea. For example, I think the idea behind Frost's beautiful poem, "After Apple-Picking" has nothing at all to do with apple picking. ;) It has everything to do with a memory of apple picking.

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I'm not sure what you mean by an idea. All forms of art need an idea. If the memory of apple picking were the key, then why not write a personal essay on the subject. What distinguishes all art forms is their inherent craft. The craft of the short story is that of telling a tale (which is the arrangement of scenes, narrative, and descritption); the craft of poetry is arrangement of language. The reason I say that poetry is charged language is because one could craft a poem with banalities and trites and cliches. Like hallmark card for instance. A hallmark card isn't poetry because the language has lost its vitality, or as I put it, its charge. I think this is the most encompassing definition I have ever run across. It includes writing that was not meant to be poetry, but bcause of it's richness is raised to a poetic level. This for instance:

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Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?- Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling And there they stand- miles of them- leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets avenues- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

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This of course is laid out in prose, but it is shear poetry. It's a couple of paragraghs from the beginning of Melville's Moby Dick, one of the truly greatest novels ever.

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I do think a poem has to contain an epiphany or a peak experience.

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It has to reach a climax or, as I prefer to think of it, resolve built up tension. An epiphany I think would be a sub set of reolving tension. I woud think you could have a poem that doesn't have an epiphany.

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Most of the novelists I love are English, but for poetry, I love Frost and Whitman. :)

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I tend to prefer American poets too. ;) For me T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens stand out. I like Whitman and Emily Dickenson. Not as crazy on Frost, but I've grown to appreciate him. Yeats (an Irishman of course) may be my all time favorite of the moderns.

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Edit - I found this definition of poetry in a book by Robert Frost. This is Frost's definition of poetry and I love it:

"It begins with a lump in the throat, a homesickness or a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found the words."

I love that.

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Originally Posted by Chester

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” –Emily Dickinson

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I find both of those definitions highly romanticized notions of poetry. I have almost no idea what the Dickinson defintion means. I've seen mathematical equations that take my head off. ;) As to the Frost's, "poem is one where an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found the words," that's a variation of William Wordsworth's concept of poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." These are all notons from the Romantic era that have come down to us and which we have not gotten over. Well, a hallmark card can take people's heads off and it too is emotion that has found the words. How does that definition encompass this wonderful, great poem by Wallace Stevens:

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The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is

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While there is some subtle emotion there, that's not what this poem is about. It's about making you see a particular thng, which may metaphorically (based on the context of Stevens' other poems and ideas) communicate something. Again he could have written an essay if all he wanted to do was to express an emotion in words. It's the craft of the language that makes this an incredible poem, especially the way the word "nothing" takes on increased meaning (it has become charged) through the various poetic techniques he employs.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I've seen mathematical equations that take my head off.

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And I would submit that there is great poetry in such equations. Now, this might be highly romanticized, but the truth is there are moments that make one stop in one’s tracks. These are the "poetic" moments of life. If one is particularly aware, I truly think one can find poetry in everything. But of course a definition so broad is no definition at all. So I would say instead that one’s relating of such moments with the written word is what, in its essence, poetry is and what Dickinson meant. Sure, this can encompass prose as well, but why split hairs. One man’s prose is another man’s poetry, just as one man’s poetic moment is another’s indifferent one. It might be highly personal and very subjective. But I think Emily’s definition works.

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Originally Posted by Chester

And I would submit that there is great poetry in such equations. Now, this might be highly romanticized, but the truth is there are moments that make one stop in one’s tracks. These are the "poetic" moments of life. If one is particularly aware, I truly think one can find poetry in everything. But of course a definition so broad is no definition at all. So I would say instead that one’s relating of such moments with the written word is what, in its essence, poetry is and what Dickinson meant. Sure, this can encompass prose as well, but why split hairs. One man’s prose is another man’s poetry, just as one man’s poetic moment is another’s indifferent one. It might be highly personal and very subjective. But I think Emily’s definition works.

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As you wish. But I still think the focus of a definition needs to rely on the craft, not the response.

To borrow phraseology from a currently irritating commercial catch-phrase, "I'm lovin' it!" -- this discussion, I mean.

Thanks so much to Isagel for moving her nice reply so that the two sections on rhyme are reunited.

Thanks Amanda Isabel, Virgil, Antiquarian, and Chester for your thoughtful responses.

Virgil, I think you and I are of one mind regarding the purpose of poetry. The language itself is foremost. I also have to add that for the most part I agree with T. S. Eliot's view of the individual artist. Here's the link to his famous essay on the topic:
Tradition and Individual Talent

As to the vaunted "epiphany" and Maslow-type "peak experience," those phenomena are highly-subjective, depending on the response of the reader, rather than the artist. On the other hand, Wordsworth's definition of "emotions recollected in tranquillity" certainly may be valid on the individual poet's part; yet I still maintain
that the poem itself is a separate entity and that "emotion"if anything, is an effect, not a cause.

Also, Chester, I used to think that "free verse" by definition eschewed meter, of which iambic pentameter is one kind.
But having studied the topic ad infinitum-- if not nauseum, I now tend to think that iambic pentameter very closely approximates human speech (in English.) Therefore I don't doubt that 90% of English poetry is in that form if not a variation of that form, with the possible exception of really abstract experimental pieces.

Also, if you have time, please take up Miller Williams's challenge and go scan a few e e cummings poems as well as a few lines of "Prufrock."

To all of you, thanks again for your comments. Keep 'em coming!

Auntie

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Also, Chester, I used to think that "free verse" by definition eschewed meter, of which iambic pentameter is one kind.
But having studied the topic ad infinitum-- if not nauseum, I now tend to think that iambic pentameter very closely approximates human speech (in English.) Therefore I don't doubt that 90% of English poetry is in that form if not a variation of that form, with the possible exception of really abstract experimental pieces.

Also, if you have time, please take up Miller Williams's challenge and go scan a few e e cummings poems as well as a few lines of "Prufrock."

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Well I never cared much for cummings or Eliot, so I'll just take you at your word on their body of work. My overall point was that most of the poetry I am finding being published today, such as the examples I posted, doesn't seem to fit iambic pentameter. But I suppose strictly speaking, everything is some variation thereof. Words are constructed from syllables after all and I suppose one can find some sense of rhythm if one looks hard enough.

Oh, I just couldn't disagree more. There are some simply wonderful poets out there. I'm amazed at what I've been seeing. Please follow the links I left in my earlier post. "Sorrows" for example is hauntingly beautiful. I know this stuff is very subjective, and if what's out there now is not your cup of tea, it's not your cup of tea. But as for me, I can't get enough of it.

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Originally Posted by Antiquarian

I've never like those poets, either, Chester, and I do agree that what's being published today isn't, for the most part, iambic pentameter, but I don't think what's being published today is really very good. Do you?

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I'd have to strongly disagree with you here Antiquarian, there's a lot of very excellent poetry being published these days. Perhaps this isn't so true in the American market (Gluck & Olds aside) but in UK there is a very strong contemporary poetry market - check out pretty much anything published by either Bloodaxe http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ or the Carcenet press http://www.carcanet.co.uk/ both of which are widely recognised as excellent poetry publishers.

Aside from those already mentioned (Gluck & Olds - not to labour the point ;) ) I'd personally name the following as excellent modern poets: John Kinsella, Carol Ann Duffy, Moniza Alvi, Simon Armitage, Sean O'Brien, Elizabeth Garrett, Kapka Kassabova, Imtiaz Dharker, Galway Kinnell, U A Fanthorpe, Jenny Joseph, Fleur Adcock, Michael Ondaatje, Connie Bensley, Adrian Mitchell, Jo Shapcott...and they're just the ones I can think of! What you enjoy, of course, will be down to personal choice but here are a couple (apologies copywrite laws!) I particularly like:

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Ecstasy

As we made love for the third day,
cloudy and dark, as we did not stop
but went into it and into it and
did not hesitate and did not hold back we
rose through the air, until we were up above
the timber line. The lake lay
icy and silver, the surface shirred,
reflecting nothing. The black rocks
lifted around it into the grainy
sepia air, the patches of snow
brilliant white, and even though we
did not know where we were, we could not
speak the language, we could hardly see, we
did not stop, rising with the black
rocks to the black hills, the black
mountains rising from the hills. Resting
on the crest of the mountains, one huge
cloud with scalloped edges of blazing
evening light, we did not turn back,
we stayed with it, even though we were
far beyond what we knew, we rose
into the grain of the cloud, even though we were
frightened, the air hollow, even though
nothing grew there, even though it is a
place from which no one has ever come back.

Sharon Olds

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Living Space

There are just not enough
straight lines. That
is the problem.
Nothing is flat
or parallel. Beams
balance crookedly on supports
thrust off the vertical.
Nails clutch at open seams.
The whole structure leans dangerously
towards the miraculous.

Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space

and even dared to place
these eggs in a wire basket,
fragile curves of white
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe,
gathering the light
into themselves,
as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.

Imtiaz Dharker

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Just to throw another opinion into the debate, this is from the Bloodaxe anthology Staying Alive:

"The essence of all poetry has always been rhythm" (Neil Astley)

hehehe, I'm not sure I'd have referred to it as romantic, but I guess I see where you're coming from! Anyway, there are a lot of great poets out there, even in these days of literature overload. From Staying Alive Neil Astley makes the following comments on this very point:

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The best contemporary poetry is life-affirming and directly relevant to all our lives. Yet most of us could only name one or two modern poems which have moved us profoundly and unforgettably. These are the kinds of poems which speak to us with the same unnerving power now as when we first came across them, like W. H. Auden's 'Funeral Blues' in Four Weddings and a Funeral ('Stop all the clocks...')...Such poems are remarkable because there seem to be so few of them. Or so we believe. For most people think contemporary poetry is either boring and irrelevant or pretentious and superficial. And that these single, powerful poems are somehow the exceptions. But they aren't. One of the problems with modern poetry is that because there is so much of it - and so many poems hold little interest for the general reader - you don't know where to find those exceptional poems...

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so, it seems poetry suffers from the same problem as most modern literature, the market is flooded and it is hard to find the exceptional from in amongst the ordinary.

Anyway, I'm on a roll now (sorry) one from Fleur Adcock, it'll be my last (honest!):

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For a Five Year Old

A snail is climbing up the window-sill
into your room, after a night of rain.
You call me in to see, and I explain
that it would be unkind to leave it there:
it might crawl to the floor, we must take care
that no one squashes it. You understand,
and carry it outside, with careful hand,
to eat a daffodil.

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:
your gentleness is moulded still by words
from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,
from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed
your closest relatives, and who purveyed
the harshest kind of truth to many another.
But, that is how things are: I am your mother,
and we are kind to snails.

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it was only on the third or fourth read that I noticed the rhyme, too caught up, perhaps because as a parent this poem speaks to me, in the spirit of it.

If you're interested in poetry then there are poets out there, and poems, which will affect you as much as Frost's After Apple Picking. But like with all published works in these days it takes perseverence to find them.

Wonderful choices, TheFifthElement.

Excellent stuff.