The Writer's E-Zine Home

Writers' Village University - F2K: Free Fiction Writing Course - ePress-online
Writers' Village University Membership Information

Poetics

Carol Malley

What is Poetry?

Carol Malley is a journalist and a published fiction and poetry writer. She was poetry editor for PERIGRINE XVIII and XVIX and has edited three books of poems by inner city teenagers, the most recent of which is "Listen to My Spanish Blood," Raised Voices Press, 2001. She developed and facilitates several poetry courses at WVU, is an instructor at Online-University, offers private e-mail poetry tutorials and leads writing workshops for underserved populations.

Writers' Village members look forward to reading more of Carol's work

In "HARD TIMES" by Charles Dickens, Thomas Gradgrind asks a student for a definition of a horse. The student answers "Quadruped. Gramnivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye teeth and twelve incisors. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth."

"Now girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know what a horse is."

John Ciardi Miller Williams uses that quote from Dickens in "HOW DOES A POEM MEAN" to show that dictionary definitions - definitions based on classification - are not always the best way to define things: that some things have to be experienced. Many of the definitions that poets come up with for poetry get at the experience of a poem rather than the composition.

Here are some of my favorite answers:

"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
"Painting is silent poetry and poetry painting that speaks."
--Plutarch
"Poems are other people's snapshots in which we recognize ourselves."
--Charles Simic
"Poetry is the kind of thing poets write."
--Robert Frost

In an interview in 1999, poet John Ashbery said, "Right after I began teaching, when I was in my late 40's, I wasn't used to students asking me "Why is this a poem?" or "Why isn't this a poem?" or "What are poems?" I never really thought about it -- I'd just been writing poems all these years."

In attempting to define poetry in the Word Weavers study group at Writers Village University, here are some of the definitions that were offered:

Timber: "Poetry is words echoing in the heart." And, Timber's more staid working definition: "Poetry is concise, musical writing that uses imagery to create an emotional experience for the reader or listener or to move him/her to an understanding. A good poem lies somewhere beyond mere words: it is the intangible, an exultation in things vaguely apprehended, something which emerges out of its own form, and which cannot exist without that form; it is the sounds of words as much as the words, the implied as much as the said."

Barb, former Word Weavers coordinator: "I've been looking all over for a definition of what poetry is. I agree that none of my poetry books have a precise one. I did go online and found a few that I thought were interesting and more or less agreed with my thinking."

A long list of quotes collected by Barb included:

"Poetry is to hold judgment on your soul."
-- Henrik Ibsen
"Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement."
-- Christopher Fry

Barb's own definition: "I like to think of poetry as a garden; our words are the seeds we plant and the poetic devices we use are the fertilizer. The bloom/fruit is the finished poem, with rewriting being the weeding a gardener does to beautify his/her garden."

sarajudy's definition: "Poetry is a stirring inside one that must be released. A steam vent for the soul so to speak"

Leslie Bianchi: "I think poetry is a reflection of something true inside, a piece of soul on paper. A communication. While I enjoy looking at other's artful, elegant definitions I think what it is comes from within and that it evolves. I often think people limit the scope of poetry, try to box it, which is a shame. Of course then there is the question of what is 'good' poetry."

Trav: "Words wrapping themselves around your soul to carry it wherever they will."

Robert's comments: "Can there not be some things that are undefinable? As poets, we, of all people, should be aware of the impotence of words to clearly and completely define ANYTHING. It's like describing how one makes love. You can try but how do you communicate the spirit of it? Don't talk about love, show me! The same goes for poetry."

In Good Morning, America (1928), poet Carl Sandburg wrote thirty-eight definitions of poetry, including: "Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break that silence with definite intentions of echoes, syllables, wave lengths." "Poetry is a theorem of a yellow-silk handkerchief knotted with riddles, sealed in a balloon tied to the tail of a kite flying in a white wind against a blue sky in spring." "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits."

After going through the definitions, what you end up with is the realization that just as a quadrupled gramnivorous with 40 teeth and hard hoofs does not capture the essence of horse nor the experience of horse, dictionary terms do not capture the experience of poetry.

We come to one last quote that most of us would have to agree with after trying to pin down a definition:

"Poetry has two outstanding characteristics. One is that it is undefinable. The other is that is eventually unmistakable."
--Edward Arlington Robinson

Copyright © 2002 by Carol Malley