poetry from the heart, mind, or both?

[Shaman_Raman]

I suppose poetry is subjective to each person, but I'm curious. Is poetry about ideals and values, or feelings and passions?

Personally, I have a habit (maybe a bad one) to think poetry, over feeling it.

[Lokasenna]

I had a curious conversation with one of my housemates last night - I had finished writing a poem, and she wanted to read it, so I gave it to her. It's a very quiet poem that reflects on grief and experience.

Her response was rather interesting - she really liked the poem, but she said that she often found it hard to take my 'serious' poetry at face value because it seems so out of keeping with my usual cheery and humerous approach to life. That got me thinking - I often set out to write poems on serious and weighty matters, despite the fact that I take almost nothing seriously in my 'real' life. I suppose in some sense that means there is often a divorcing of heart and mind in my poetry.

[cafolini]

I had a curious conversation with one of my housemates last night - I had finished writing a poem, and she wanted to read it, so I gave it to her. It's a very quiet poem that reflects on grief and experience.

Her response was rather interesting - she really liked the poem, but she said that she often found it hard to take my 'serious' poetry at face value because it seems so out of keeping with my usual cheery and humerous approach to life. That got me thinking - I often set out to write poems on serious and weighty matters, despite the fact that I take almost nothing seriously in my 'real' life. I suppose in some sense that means there is often a divorcing of heart and mind in my poetry.

The heart is raw stuff. People have always struggled to satisfy the heart with the machinations of the mind. That's how difficult it is. So, naturally, there is a divorce in order to get married. LOL

[cacian]

I consider poetry about everything. I like live poetry. I see I write. A bit like sketching something happening right in front of you.
I do it all the time. It is not an attachement or a feeling it is more of a way of life another way of expressing ones'thought but with panache.
We do not converse in poetry and so we must write it down to ensure we do not miss out on the richeness of the mind and its contact with language.
It is another cinema that takes place in front you at the strike of a pen.

[Shaman_Raman]

I consider poetry about everything. I like live poetry. I see I write. A bit like sketching something happening right in front of you.
I do it all the time. It is not an attachement or a feeling it is more of a way of life another way of expressing ones'thought but with panache.
We do not converse in poetry and so we must write it down to ensure we do not miss out on the richeness of the mind and its contact with language.
It is another cinema that takes place in front you at the strike of a pen.

Well said. However I believe we do accidentally converse in poetry time to time, I caught my dad do it the other day. It'd be pretty neat to try speaking poetically for a week straight, I can only imagine the impressions.

"If burgers with fries,
Is what you desire,
Cook away I will,
Over the char-grille
Fire."

[cacian]

Well said. However I believe we do accidentally converse in poetry time to time, I caught my dad do it the other day. It'd be pretty neat to try speaking poetically for a week straight, I can only imagine the impressions.

"If burgers with fries,
Is what you desire,
Cook away I will,
Over the char-grille
Fire."

Hehe your dad sounds an interesting guy good for him I say.

[Shaman_Raman]

Hehe your dad sounds an interesting guy good for him I say.

Haha that's one word for him

[stlukesguild]

I had a curious conversation with one of my housemates last night - I had finished writing a poem, and she wanted to read it, so I gave it to her. It's a very quiet poem that reflects on grief and experience.

Her response was rather interesting - she really liked the poem, but she said that she often found it hard to take my 'serious' poetry at face value because it seems so out of keeping with my usual cheery and humerous approach to life. That got me thinking - I often set out to write poems on serious and weighty matters, despite the fact that I take almost nothing seriously in my 'real' life. I suppose in some sense that means there is often a divorcing of heart and mind in my poetry.

Loka... This is one of the main reasons that I question the notion of "self -expression" in the arts... especially as the term and concept has been employed post-Romanticism. I think that all of us are so multi-faceted and complex that it is ridiculous to suppose that a work of art can even begin to touch upon the whole of who we are.

[moldur]

Poetry is but a means of expression. What it expresses is ultimately up to the one creating it. It is not set in being about anything, the heart nor the mind per se. Poetry may be raw and carry an utter disregard for standard literary conventions, or it may be very meticulously constructed. That alone does not even begin to touch on the subject matter of a poem, which may range from the extraordinary to the most seemingly mundane.

I think that all of us are so multi-faceted and complex that it is ridiculous to suppose that a work of art can even begin to touch upon the whole of who we are.

This is a very good point, and I individually happened upon a similar conclusion within my own thoughts several months ago. Real people will never be one dimensional. I am multi-faceted, as are we all. My dad for instance, he appears physically as an intimidating, 6', fairly well built, serious faced man. He's flown million dollar jets as a fighter pilot for the military for a large portion of his life and he played football in high school. The picture of the person that I am painting has already formed in most of your minds--intimidating, serious, perhaps scowling, but wait! This is also the person that tells us about his stories of playing D&D with his friends as a kid, or about that last Isaac Asimov novel he read, or how he's planning on adjusting the tilt on his R/C airplane. He's the person petting the cat going "awwww, he's so cute," making dinner, and explaining dark matter at the dinner table.
See, there are so many things to a person. Interests, feelings, thoughts. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts... It would be nearly impossible to express oneself in wholeness within a single work.

[JBI]

I supposedly composed a poem in classical Chinese while drunk out of my mind last night. I supposedly chanted it out, but nobody is exactly sure how it went. Was that feeling or thought? cannot be certain, but I have never composed when sober before, so I guess it must be feeling. I guess Li Bo must have felt the same thing - too drunk to even care what he was saying.

[JCamilo]

I had a curious conversation with one of my housemates last night - I had finished writing a poem, and she wanted to read it, so I gave it to her. It's a very quiet poem that reflects on grief and experience.

Her response was rather interesting - she really liked the poem, but she said that she often found it hard to take my 'serious' poetry at face value because it seems so out of keeping with my usual cheery and humerous approach to life. That got me thinking - I often set out to write poems on serious and weighty matters, despite the fact that I take almost nothing seriously in my 'real' life. I suppose in some sense that means there is often a divorcing of heart and mind in my poetry.

I do not think heart and mind are divorced in this case. More like, poetry is another medium, which make you feel inclined to express those feelings, unlike on a casual chat. Not different from the suppposed not real life of internet personas, of the timid burocratic that became a raging bull in a soccer stadiumm, etc. Heart and mind are theroue, it is just good old negative capability working out. Your friend, however, lacks the suspension of disbelief without knowing that your laid back persona of daily life would also require some effort of interpretation

[PSRemeshChandra]

Heart is quantification and mind is a qualification, of matter. One is matter precipitated and the other is matter amorphous. Thoughts, feelings and emotions, which are the chief constituents of poetry and all other literary forms, art and music, has to have a material basis. We do not still know whether thoughts, feelings and emotions are there existing outside matter. If they are there, we are not yet ripe and old enough to conceive them and grasp them. So, without a heart which is only a pure and powerful pump, in our present state of evolutions, we cannot create, construct, reveal or discover from nature any poetry without us existing in a material level. Generations of human thought and philosophy has taught us that poetry has to have its roots from both the heart and the mind. But what can this immaterial intermediary with a material base and immaterial flexibility and movability be that stands between heart and mind and make poetry possible? We have had so many definitions of poetry ranging from Carlyle's 'Poetry is musical thought' to the ordinary man's general consensus that 'poetry is the spontaneous outflow of thoughts and emotions sprouting from close and objective observations of things, situations and conditions'. We are not contented with these definitions and still crave and search for more satisfying explanations of how and why poetry happens. In all these mental quests of ours, we quite forgot that mysterious intermediary between heart and mind: cannot we think that poetry is nothing but our intelligence at play?

[cacian]

I supposedly composed a poem in classical Chinese while drunk out of my mind last night. I supposedly chanted it out, but nobody is exactly sure how it went. Was that feeling or thought? cannot be certain, but I have never composed when sober before, so I guess it must be feeling. I guess Li Bo must have felt the same thing - too drunk to even care what he was saying.

I missed this one. what was the poem about?