What is Poetry?

desiderata.english

Be forewarned that today's piece is different from normal -- because of the topic, it can prove to be somewhat "academic", but we do have time for some rocking of the mind on Sunday, don't we? Well, starting lightly to prepare you for heavy medicine with two quotes:

Poetry is recollection of emotions in tranquility. *** William Wordsworth

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that it is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that it is poetry." *** Emily Dickinson.

So at this juncture, the question is asked: WhatIs Poetry?

“Poetry is as universal as language and almost as ancient. The most primitive peoples have used it, and the most civilized have cultivated it... ,” Thomas R. Arp (1997) wrote in Perrine’s “Sound and Sense”.4

“Why? First, because it has given pleasure. People have read it, listened to it, or recited it because they liked it – because it gave them enjoyment. But this is not the whole answer. Poetry in all ages has been regarded as important, not simply as one of several alternative forms of amusement, as one person might choose bowling, another chess, and another poetry... Rather, it has been regarded as something central to existence, something having unique value to the fully realized life, something that we are better off for having and without which we are spiritually impoverished...

“Initially, poetry might be defined as a kind of language that says more and says it more intensely than does ordinary language... Perhaps the commonest use of language is to communicate information... But it is not primarily to communicate that novels, short stories, plays, and poems are written. These exist to bring us a sense and a perception of life, to widen and sharpen our contacts with existence. Their concern is with experience. We all have an inner need to live more deeply and fully and with greater awareness, to know the experience of others, and to understand our own experience better. (Emphasis by Arp p.3-4)

This substantial extract from “Sound and Sense” would lay the foundation for our understanding of what “poetry is about”, which underlines largely the “definition” of poetry for this thesis. The thesis does not propose to delve into the “anatomical analysis” or “ingredients” that make up a particular piece of writing to qualify as a poem. It adopts a general approach in accepting as poetry that which had been “aptly” described by Dickinson, in that when we read a particular piece of writing , we “know it is poetry” because of the effects it has on us. Something is poetic when the verses lift us to a higher plane of human experience, giving us joy and giving us a richer insight into the human condition that strikes a chord in the reader.

Of course, the reader of any poem must have acquired a certain level of competency in the language of the poem; otherwise, he may not be able to fully appreciate and enjoy the poem. For the more serious student of poetry, it is essential that his language proficiency has to be at an advanced level, especially if the language used is also subjected to various interpretations and calls on the reader to be informed of the poet’s background and period of his works to fully enjoy the poems. However, for poetry to serve the function as a communication medium, it suffices that generally, poems delight us with their sound (song) as well as enriching us with the sense in the words used, for every word used has been deliberately selected for its special meaning and property.

Here it is relevant to reproduce Alexander Pope’s observation as quoted in “Sound and Sense”, from the writer’s “An Essay on Criticism”:

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

Arp stated that poets, from their own store of felt, observed, or imagined experiences, would select, combine, and reorganise to create significant new experiences for the readers. By their participation, readers may gain a greater awareness and understanding of their world. “Literature, in other words, can be used as a gear for stepping up the intensity and increasing the range of our experience and as a glass for clarifying it. This is the literary use of language, for literature is not only an aid to living but a means of living.” (Arp p.4)

In an appendixed footnote quoted from Encyclopedia Americana IX (1955) 473-74, it was stated: “A third use of language is as an instrument of persuasion. This is the use we find in advertisements, propaganda bulletins, sermons, and political speeches. These three uses of language – the practical, the literary, and the hortatory – are not sharply divided.... But language becomes literature when the desire to communicate experience predominates.”

Arp continued: “Literature, then, exists to communicate significant experience – significant because concentrated and organised. Its function is not to tell us about experience but to allow us imaginatively to participate in it. It is a means of allowing us, through the imagination, to live more fully, more deeply, more richly, and with greater awareness. It can do this in two ways: by broadening our experience – that is, by making us acquainted with a range of experience with which, in the ordinary course of events, we might have not contact – or by deepening our experience – that is, by making us feel more poignantly and more understandingly the everyday experiences all of us have. It enlarges our perspectives and breaks down some of the limits we may feel.” (Emphasis by Arp p.5)

Hence, Arp has stressed the need of readers to take part in “experiencing” the poetry shared by the poet, or there is no “connection”. Only when there is participation, there is “connection” established between poet and reader which would result in an enjoyment by the reader or listener of recited poetry. To me, this is equivalent to “reaching to the heart, soul and mind” of the reader by the poet via his/her verses based on the latter’s experience which is shared through the written word; this represents the “bonding in communication” which does not normally happen in a piece of prose writing.


Desiderata's test: Does the folowing connect with you, Young as well as NotSoYoung Readers?

The door is half closed

I am here
Your are there
And there is a door between us
It's half closed

I feel comforable on this side of my world
A melodious singing voice beckons me over
You insist the skies are bluer there
And the sun shines forever bright

I have grown used to my darker world
With all its ups and downs
With all its hurts and frowns
So I'm reluctant to take a step
Beyond the half clsed door

"The door is still half open,
to welcome you," the beguiling voice again.
I pause and linger,
As the door closes slowly, slowly, surely.

I sometimes wonder about
The face behind the sweet, tempting voice
Behind the now almost shut door.

YLChong