What IS a poem?

[raven]

So when people often think of poetry, I have found they assume

it is wrist-slasher depressed ramblings, but it is so much more

than that. A poem is a story, a thought, a word. It can hold a

story of a life, of a moment, of a thought lasting a second. It can

be the grasping of an idea, sound, smell, taste, or it can be the

outpouring of an emotion. So what is a poem?

[davidaccampo]

ah-ha...quoth the raven...

Actually, I think you've defined a poem rather well. Poetry is an elusive beast, often more defined by what it's not than what it is.

At its core, it about that moment of Truth. But then, so is all fiction. Narrative fiction has to jump through more hoops. And yet, a poem can be a narrative as well.

As a writer, I've defined my own poetry differntly from my prose by boiling the Truth down in a crucible, finding JUST the images and statements needed to reveal that TRUTH in its purest and most concise manner.

Now that's not to say what a poem is...just how I would define it in my own work.

dave

[nolan]

Much easier question to ask years ago.

The lines between poetry and prose have blurred a lot.

[jayvee]

Just some kinds of poetry.

There are still definitions and classes of certain poems... We just seem enamored with open verse because it's "sophisticated." Like that trash beatniks read to one another in dive bars while smoking long cigarettes and wearing berets and eyeliner. I blame E.E. Cummings.

Long live Robert Frost.

[raven]

SHAKESPEARE! :cheers: Yay!
It's like trying to define a Word. Know what I mean? It's different to everyone. And so is the truth. I like the way you said it, Dave. Refining the words and work. Mine has no definition, no images and statements. Kinda like...

'Who is she? I do not know, cannot know, for she is many and none at once. She has a mask and yet wears none upon her face. Her eyes do not fit the pretense that she wears, for they are intense beyond anything that belongs in that visage. She is shadowed, mysterious, with a past and a future that are as clouded and unknown as her present. ' She is a Poem, is a Word. Nothing and Everything. Past and Future held in the Present. <in a deep-thinking mood. ^_^> It's an abstract. And funnily (is that a word?) enough, often Poetry or writings are about abstracts. An abstract object defining an abstract idea. Blind leading blind!

[davidaccampo]

Sure you can classify and define various types of poetry, all that does is...classify and define certain types of poetry. I'm less interested in that than what truth the poet is attempting to reveal.

I have no problem with beatniks or free verse. Anything it takes to get at the truth. Bad poetry is bad poetry -- doesn't matter if it comes in free verse or haiku.

I love Ginsburg's HOWL, for example.

Going back further, give me Walt Whitman over Robert Frost any day.

[raven]

Freeverse is ok. As long as it's good. I've never heard of HOWL, but I still like shakespearean english and such, though the works of Frost are a close second. I've never read whitman's works, however. But whoever wrote Rhyme of the Acient Mariner has major cool points. Why do we try to define anything? A name is only a sound. A word. But everything is known by the sound we make to describe it, to make it less fearsome, to bind it to our will. Why do we name and define things? To do so removes their magic. Why?

[jayvee]

Samuel Coleridge wrote MARINER.

[raven]

thanks. :huggles:

[davidaccampo]

raven said:

Freeverse is ok. As long as it's good. I've never heard of HOWL, but I still like shakespearean english and such, though the works of Frost are a close second.

Whitman is essential -- one of the essential poets of the "American Rennaissance" of literature ushered forth by the Transcendalists...and stylistically, he's often thought of as the granddaddy of modern american poetry and literature.

There's a throughline from the Transcendalists to the Beat Generation. The Beats were probably almost as influential in American culture. Allen Ginsberg wrote HOWL, and it's one of those well-known Beat era works, similar to Kerouac's On the Road or Burroughs' Naked Lunch.

Not saying the style or content is going to be right for everyone, but I DO think everyone should be aware of them and their influence.

Howl should be in any decent bookstore. Whitman's Leaves of Grass should be in any bookstore.

And if you get a chance, try to track down audio of Ginsberg reading Howl. It's truly enhanced as a spoken word piece.

I've got no problem with Frost, but man...the vitality and LIFE of Whitman's Song of Myself, the pain and anguish in Ginsberg's Howl....to me that's where poetry really comes to life.

[nolan]

It used to be much easier when poems were in verse form but I think its blurring a lot.

There are a lot of prose writers who write what is basically narrative poetry.

[jayvee]

I didn't think very much of Frost until I had to dissect and compare BIRCHES and THE ROAD NOT TAKEN.

I was in love afterwards.

[raven]

Thanks. I'll look for them at the library next time I go, it's got everything.
I usually write in verses, no matter if it's narritive or not. But it does get confusing when prose and poetry begin to mesh

[trevorpresler]

Hello! I think that a poem is something that you can create in order to outpour of an emotion regarding something you're concerned with.