what is poetry?

Today we are torn between two worlds. One is technology driven world and the other is an old world wherein human feelings, love and the rest of oher sublime faculties were inseparable parts of life.

Today man is mechanized, lives like a machine motored by power. There is little passion for subtle and sublimate things. Money powers man.

Today we need poetry more than anything else and with this we can live.

See there is friction everywhere in the world. Man is turning into a passion or emotionless dry reasoning creature on this planet.

Poetry is something that vitalizes man. Poetry is something that lifts him spiritually upward. Poetry is somehing that fills his skeletal and skiiny soul with flesh, someting vibrant.

Withot poetry you become a stack of dry bones, without vitality and vibrancy.

Poetry is like a tonic that tones up your life and spirit.

In times of desparation in poetry I can take refuge.

Nothing so deeply appeals to me more than poetry.

Poetry is a subtle and invisible thread that connects you with your maker, whether you call it God, nature or by any other names.

Love is the subtlest expression of your heart.

When you will be in a pang of emotion whether it is oout of joy or pain it is thru poems you can rleieve yourslef.

Poetry is more vital and essential today.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

Today we are torn between two worlds. One is technology driven world and the other is an old world wherein human feelings, love and the rest of oher sublime faculties were inseparable parts of life.

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Well I'm not torn. I'm a modern person and I have feelings of love and other sublime faculties. Where are you getting this from? I have yet to meet any serious person who would prefer to live like a cave man over a modern individual. How old are you blaze? Life expectancy was probably around 25 until this technology driven world came into being. You're probably would be close to the end of your life if it wasn't for the modern world. I bet you couldn't even live without toilet paper. Go and try to live without the modern conveniences and tell me how it feels.

I think he means that humans should focus more on feelings than organizing their ipods.

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Originally Posted by JJLuke

I think he means that humans should focus more on feelings than organizing their ipods.

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That's not what he said. I'm sorry to you Blaze. I'm sure you mean well. It just struck me as simple.

BlazeofGlory have you read Robert Penn Warren's book called Poetry and Democracy? It talks about just what you are concerned with in your post.

Mode Note: moved from General Literature.

To Blazeofglory: Let me differ from your view in at least one respect. The machine world you speak of has to include computers and if you grew up on legal pads and carbon paper as I did...you would not object to this alleged dycotomy. Also, the e-mail itself will (if not allready) by a type of literature with all it's quirks, deliberate shortcuts, bad grammer and syntax and abreviations even the military don't get. Wouldn't want to be the one to write the directory that would enable newbies to understand all the e-mail-speak. By the way, what does SATM mean? quasimodo1

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Today man is mechanized, lives like a machine motored by power. There is little passion for subtle and sublimate things. Money powers man.

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That's a wrong concept. In older days, there was murder and chaos also, many sources provide information it was much more than what it is now. Today's man has got feelings, those who love poetry as well as those who are not interested in it.

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Withot poetry you become a stack of dry bones, without vitality and vibrancy.

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A person not interested in the works of Yeats, Frost, Keats, etc, is not a feeling-less or emotion-less person either!

I agree with several above posts in that it is very difficult and wrong to judge the world on such a black and white basis of ¨evil technology¨ and ¨human feeling¨. Technology, like art and poetry, is a creation of mankind, used for many shades of bad and good.

technology is good insofar as it serves. to have it the other way around -- fools are us.

Blaze, I believe that humans nowadays are even more emotional than before, and are stuffed with feelings too, or else they wouldn`t have reached this technology that helped them reach their desires :).

Dear quasimodo1, SATM is "Someone At The Moment"

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Originally Posted by Poetess

Blaze, I believe that humans nowadays are even more emotional than before, and are stuffed with feelings too, or else they wouldn`t have reached this technology that helped them reach their desires :).

Dear quasimodo1, SATM is "Someone At The Moment"

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Poetess, emotion is what appeals to me immensely for life without emotion is meaningless and void. Man denuded of emotion is simple a skeletol with blood and flesh, in fact a heap dry bones.

Emotion is what vitalizes you, the way i am wired to you across geopolitical barriers to animate you with my ideas. I too got animated by your ideas deeply and profoundly. Is this not emotion and the power of it vitalizing us?

Technology has defintely triggered our capacities for sharing. Yet I feel or am nostalgic about a time when I used to write a letter to my friend on paper and get it posted and the effect of that is more profoyund than the email now I use in its stead.

Technology helps sharing ideas. Or else how can I could discuss with you the way i am doing now. yet it is hard for me to subscribe to the fact that with technology we are more emotional than our ancestors without technology.

This is just what I think.

Blaze, I totally agreee with you.
I did not mean that "with technology we are more emotional than our ancestors without technology.".. I just meant that some of our emotions helped us to embrace technology more.

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Originally Posted by Poetess

Blaze, I totally agreee with you.
I did not mean that "with technology we are more emotional than our ancestors without technology.".. I just meant that some of our emotions helped us to embrace technology more.

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In fact what I think is technology and emotion are two different things and i do not see that technology intensifies emotions. we can not say that some living in a remote village where no access of technology and modern amenities prevail an d people live with entirely primitive lives are less emotional than those who live in a modern city equipped with all modern sophistications.

I will give you an experience of my own. I was born in a very remote village somewhere in the mountain. My father was a farmer. There was no road and even the nearest school was 5 miles away and we had to walk on foot. I was in a joint family. My brothers and sisters number 7. The family had 11 members then. If we got a small gift worth a little money would excite me and this remained many days or months then.

Now my son does not become happy with the same gift and even with bigger gifts the degree of happiness does increase.

I do not think now with this internet I get happier than without it years ago when I was in a world of books.

But one thing is true that with technology we do not value emotional quotients much. In the business world emotion is not valued the way reason is valued.

Poetry can do what prose can not. It can transcends limits and break barriers. Poetry is not a subject of what you think or reason things. Poetry springs up from a part of you where dreams and wakefulness are bridged. Simply writing following a standard and adhering to a formula you can not write a poem in its true sense. It must well up from the bottom of your heart. Poets can decipher the secret of natural phenomena, and they can see things beyond the veneer. If there is a God he is a small god for both are creators an d the difference if any is only a matter of degrees not of kind.

This is an expression out of meditation on poetry. Expression is individual centric and that is entirely mine and you may agree or disagree.

I have scribbled a couple of poems. There maybe plenty of grammatical mistakes. For every piece of poetry is going forward to perfection and if what I want to communicate across is done I will rest satisfied.



Love is nature’s nest

Love needs no language,
It is self manifest.
I saw a couple of pigeons
Constructing a home of their own
Out of twigs and grasses

They needed no home till the mother was due with a baby

For the baby to come
They needed a cozy home

Eggs were laid
The mother hatched them
But a cat caught all of the eggs,

All day both brooded on the branch of a tree
Seeing the gnawed remains of the eggs

There was no language, maybe one out of our comprehension.
Nature is mute, yet what is unspoken is pregnant with meanings.

Nature is nestled in love
The rest we see in nature are sheer reflections of love

The one who can understand the language is a poet
And those who fail is yet master the skill
The skill of composing poetry


Home

Home is where two souls join together
If you are not in union
You will be in communion with all
Home is where you need a little security for the one to come
You need to roof to cover it
For it is too delicate to stand heat and cold

But when you are grown-ups
You can fly anywhere
The whole world is your home.
See animals and birds need homes when they have little ones
Once they start flying they can pass night on any branch

At times when natural forces become too powerful
They need to protect them from a tornado.
Maybe a torrent of rains
Or cutting cold or burning heat
Or else why they need homes

Man builds home
Yet he does not feel at home
Animals and birds have no permanent
Yet they feel at home everywhere
Home is not an object
It is a feeling, the warmth of your heart
Where there is no heart there is no home

Merged with another similar thread, which has also been started by Blaze.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

Technology has defintely triggered our capacities for sharing. Yet I feel or am nostalgic about a time when I used to write a letter to my friend on paper and get it posted and the effect of that is more profoyund than the email now I use in its stead.

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what's preventing you from writing snail mails? does the invention of the car mean your not allowed to walk if you wish to?
i write snail mail letters to people all the time, and I think it's a bit black and white to claim that real letters = profound, email= superficial. you'd be surprised at the amount of meaningless dribble people can write in a snail mail (including myself)

Uncle Virgil, you are so predictable :lol: after I read halfway through your post I was about to hit the reply botton and say "yeah, and what would you do without toilet paper?"... (wipe our a**** with grass probably) hehe, if you go on like this, I'll write you a letter on toiletpaper one day :D. hehe, please don't be cross, I agree with you for a change. technology and emotions are certainly not mutually exclusive. i'd even hazard to say that with technology taking some work off our shoulders we've got more time left to 'wallow' in our emotions.

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Originally Posted by dramasnot6

I agree with several above posts in that it is very difficult and wrong to judge the world on such a black and white basis of ¨evil technology¨ and ¨human feeling¨. Technology, like art and poetry, is a creation of mankind, used for many shades of bad and good.

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Very well said, Drama.

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Originally Posted by SleepyWitch

Uncle Virgil, you are so predictable :lol: after I read halfway through your post I was about to hit the reply botton and say "yeah, and what would you do without toilet paper?"... (wipe our a**** with grass probably) hehe, if you go on like this, I'll write you a letter on toiletpaper one day :D. hehe, please don't be cross, I agree with you for a change. technology and emotions are certainly not mutually exclusive. i'd even hazard to say that with technology taking some work off our shoulders we've got more time left to 'wallow' in our emotions.

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Hehehe, I'm not cross. I guess being here almost two years now, there is not much different than i can say. As to the toilet paper, I was reaching for an example so mundane and yet so palpable that one could feel the difference. Plus toilet paper is made out of wood, and i love the image of cutting down trees (the horror! :D ) and grinding it down with machinery just so man can live better lives. Nature is there for us to use, not the other way around. If you disagree, then go live like a cave man and see if you like it.

:) I don't wanna argue about environmental issues with you :) (at least not at the moment) I was just teasing you about the toilet paper because you've used that example so many times before.

moved from general literature

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Originally Posted by SleepyWitch

what's preventing you from writing snail mails? does the invention of the car mean your not allowed to walk if you wish to?
i write snail mail letters to people all the time, and I think it's a bit black and white to claim that real letters = profound, email= superficial. you'd be surprised at the amount of meaningless dribble people can write in a snail mail (including myself)

Uncle Virgil, you are so predictable :lol: after I read halfway through your post I was about to hit the reply botton and say "yeah, and what would you do without toilet paper?"... (wipe our a**** with grass probably) hehe, if you go on like this, I'll write you a letter on toiletpaper one day :D. hehe, please don't be cross, I agree with you for a change. technology and emotions are certainly not mutually exclusive. i'd even hazard to say that with technology taking some work off our shoulders we've got more time left to 'wallow' in our emotions.

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Not always technology has been an impediment, and not mutually exclusive either. In my case I am a Nepali. I write in English and technology helps me to write, like computers, the internet, even dictionaries etc.