Poetry is?

i think language, properly manipulated, can "trick" the mind into a visual sensation, much in the same way that impressionist painting can.

i agree that it is something of a short-circuit of the analytical mind. i've always found it interesting that it can trip a subconscious switch.

Oh, I like that explanation. Sometimes, it tricks the mind by not giving it what it expected (I think that's reader-response theory)...the reader was expecting one thing but got another. That is enough to paint a vivid image and make something stand out...

"Poetry is pure reader response".

Then I would ask, "what about the element of self satisfaction?".

"...has instant emotion effect on our brains, bypassing analytical processing."

And I would ask, "Then why meter/mathmatics?" "How can (we) extrapolate poetic theory or poetic studies or translations, critiques, transformations (into other products/arts) and interpretations?"

When is the human mind exclusively non-analytical?

The senses are for collecting data to be analyized. Emmotional response comes after analysis. Compare first generation computers to current capabilities. Truth is, (we) really don't know what the mind is actually capable of when it comes to analyizing and assimilating information.

Poetry, as any form of communication, is code. I don't get chinese language. I have read one book on the pictorial concepts embedded in the written symbols and find that I am intriqued with the pictorial poetics of the language/code. For example: if you deconstruct the radicals (elements of the whole character/word), you find that the character/word for light is man on fire. To me that is intensely interesting.

There are templates that reside in the human brain that are ancient first templates, those don't disappear. (We) only modify and recombine to spawn layers and layers of other templates.

Poetry is just grunting to some and elucidating to others, as true with any code.

Poetry is a conglomeration of words formed together to create the images in the poet's consciousness at the time the words were written. Poetry is a representation of the movement of thoughts through the mind.

Neurologically, poetry engages several different areas of the brain, and those areas differ if one is reading silently, reading aloud, or listening to poetry being read.

And the areas are not all on the right side of the brain, either.

ColoradoGuy said:

To tease the brain’s poetic sense out I’d like to find an example somewhere of a poetic idiot savant -- a person with a highly developed poetic ability yet stupidly inarticulate in every other way. I’ve met a few rhyming psychotics, even had a few in the neighborhood, but that’s not the same thing.

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One of the most ancient core myths of I.E. languages are myths about how the über bard or poet obtained his gift. They tend to be idiot savant types. I'll post a couple myths if people are interested, but I don't want to derail the discussion here.

Poetry is seeing and saying.

kdnxdr said:

Poetry is seeing and saying.

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so is a travelogue. so is a movie review. so is a pet guide.

Not wishing to stir but...

please define what poetry you are talking about.

For me much poetry written by the self styled post-moderns (sigh!) is not poetry because it lacks things I regard as needed in poetry.

(And no I'm not talking about a poem must rhyme but some posters have talked about emotions and most PostM poetry is as cold emotionally as yesterday's kipper!)

Poetry has meter, and the meter is patterned and largely predictable--that said, there are a number of different kinds of meter, some of which are not accentual or syllabic in the sense of post 1100 English poetry.

I would argue that there are prose poems, and that some prose, say much of Churchill's speeches, are essentially poetic if not poems.

Bless you, Medievalist, for saying that poetry has patterned meter. Puma

Poetry is linguistic music...or maybe it is lyrical thought.

In which case...

what happened to poetry? How did it become what so called poets in the late 20thC inflicted upon us?

I need to find an example and then you can show me the metre and lyrical thought that I can't find in the darned things.

Working all today will try tonight, my time!

There are scads of lovely poems in the late twentieth century; go take a look at the Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.

And keep in mind that the person saying this generally skips stuff after 1832 . . . .

wow.

/backs away slowly...

William Haskins said:

wow.

/backs away slowly...

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Aw come on Haskins . . . you know I like aged stuff!

pdr, the way I read your posts, it sounds as though you're saying that for a writer to claim "It's poetry because I say it is" is specious. That's how I feel.

As far as I was concerned, the Dada artists (with their random generations of art), Marcel Duchamp (with his urinal on the gallery wall), and John Cage (performing a 'piano concert' in a city square, simply opening the keyboard and claiming the ambient city noise as the musical work) already finished off that conceptual line of thinking. It worked for the first artists, one time; after that, it's a bore.

If that's the case, I agree, although the distinction between "not qualified as art" and "bad art" is not a huge one for me; the level of interest or engagement is the same to me.

I don't necessarily need to be made to feel; being made to think is sufficient for me. But, as with any other form of art, I want and expect some sensory elevation from the experience.

Please...

have a look here: http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/issue8_Chikhladze.html

They are, for me, a better class of Postmod work. BUT I find many of them words without connection to the writer and thus lost to the reader. Often they're very turned inwards and naval gazing so that the reader needs an interpreter, they're without soul if you like. I can't read them aloud, which is half poetry's pleasure.

For me poetry needs to be accessible. Not easy, I don't mean that, I mean that there is a way in through the way the images and ideas, the way the words are expressed.


And keep in mind that the person saying this generally skips stuff after 1832 . . . .
And that's an unnecessary comment which could be taken to be rather rude.
Let's stick to the topic please.

pdr said:

And keep in mind that the person saying this generally skips stuff after 1832 . . . .
And that's an unnecessary comment which could be taken to be rather rude.
Let's stick to the topic please.

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What?

What the heck do you think Medievalist means? It's not rude, it's a statement of fact.

I don't generally favor much after 1832; with the exception of the English novel, I don't even teach lit after 1832.

Dude it's my taste in literature and my career. What did you think it was?

You struggling with the antecendent of this? I'm talking about me, OK?

Not you. Me. And really, I've never yet offended myself.

As with anything in life, there are differing camps. And, as usual, the camps differing usually have difficulty coming to any kind of consensus. And, in some cases, wars start. So, in the world of poetry, I can see how it behooves persons to live happily in their camps, venture over to visit friendly camps and if one desires, abdicate your camp and join another according to their criteria of membership if that becomes your passion. Otherwise, maintain civility.

Poetry is one voice in a world of many voices, find yours.

pdr, I went to the link you supplied. Definately difficult stuff to read and digest, especially if you have no appetite for that type of poetry. The way that I personally can refer to that style as poetry is that I see it as a long chain of links that has come to rest. Each link is an icon or singular concept that when considered links to the other involved concepts & icons. Each one stands alone for consideration/meditation, like catholic prayer beads. And, when the individual concepts are considered, the next step is to consider/meditate on how they link together. After considering the individual elements of the piece, the whole can then be visualized as a complete picture/meditation and this will produce a statement, layered with many statements.

I don't listen well to techtronic music either. In fact, there's alot of music I don't get.