Dear Frater

Dear Frater,

The other day you asked me “What defines a poem? Like, how can you tell if a piece of writing is a poem? What defines the boundary of poetry?” You probably understand poetry as language that communicates ideas in a form other than prose. You probably don’t understand how your sister’s prose poems classify as poems.

I consulted my book shelves and the internet to help me to explain to you how contemporary poets define poetry. I know you paid attention in English class, therefore I’m going to gloss over definitions that rely on meter, sound, and other commonly known poetic devices.

1)      "It (poetry) consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose."

-http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm

               This is the short answer. You can stop here, but many other ideas about poetry and art in general are ahead.

2)      "Art proceeds according to principles discernable in works of art."

-Robert Pinsky The Sounds of Poetry

               Artists look to art to guide them in the creation of their art. That is not to say that every piece of art, or poem in this instance, is a direct reproduction of what came before it. If a poet sees something they personally (and yes, the definition of poetry is a personal definition) define as poetry, they are likely to incorporate that idea into their own work. As far as my work goes, I define prose poems as poetry by reading authors like Marisol Martinez, Baudelaire, and Rauan Klassnik. It has been said to me that prose poems “eliminate” poetic tools. I disagree. Prose poems operate on a different set of terms and repurpose those tools into a language form. Prose strives to make logical sense, but prose poetry relies on emotion and image to operate.

3)      "Poetic language is language in which meaning refuses to be single-minded: the transitivity of meaning splits, as we mean more than we intend."

-Heather Mc Hugh Broken Language

               Poetry does not operate in the way of right and wrong. There are more than two ways to interpret a poem. It is completely valid for you to look at my work and say, “I think my sister is about to cut her ears off and feed them to her cat.” But that reading of my work does not invalidate my work as “art,” or even as good art. Different readers may get different emotions, and therefore ideas, from my work. I might have intended some of them and not others. This does not bother me. I do not need to have control over how people read my work.

4)      "But ultimately a very bad poem is more than one that violates literary conventions, poetic meter, and grammatical rules. It contains an element of art-- that certain something that marks the poem as a masterpiece. As with great art, we can't exactly define a very bad poem except to say we know one when we see one."

 

-        From the introduction of Very Bad Poetry edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras (The author of the introduction was not listed.)

 

When discussing what art is, it can be helpful to discuss what art is not. I’m not sure that you ever studied “The Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp. Once you Google it I know you will say, “A urinal mounted to a wall is NOT art.” A portion of the art world disagrees with you. Art is where the artist sees emotion and meaning. It is for the viewer to examine in a heightened awareness. The same goes with any work, especially poetry. A poem becomes a poem when someone decides the language has poetic meaning. That does not make it a poem the world will value and call “good poetry.” It simply makes the language a piece of art.

 

5)      "I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

 

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

 

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means."

 

-        From “Introduction to Poetry” from Poetry 180 by Billy Collins

Now that we have discussed what poetry is, here is my one tip for how to read it.  It is possible to delve so logically into a poem that you lose a sense of the emotion that is being given to you. My advice, is stay in the moment as long as you can. Experience everything in the poem as many ways as possible to get the richest experience.

 

Love,

Kidlit

The other day you asked me “What defines a poem? Like, how can you tell if a piece of writing is a poem? What defines the boundary of poetry?” You probably understand poetry as language that communicates ideas in a form other than prose. You probably don’t understand how your sister’s prose poems classify as poems.

I consulted my book shelves and the internet to help me to explain to you how contemporary poets define poetry. I know you paid attention in English class, therefore I’m going to gloss over definitions that rely on meter, sound, and other commonly known poetic devices.

1)      "It (poetry) consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose."

-http://www.poetry.org/whatis.htm

               This is the short answer. You can stop here, but many other ideas about poetry and art in general are ahead.

2)      "Art proceeds according to principles discernable in works of art."

-Robert Pinsky The Sounds of Poetry

               Artists look to art to guide them in the creation of their art. That is not to say that every piece of art, or poem in this instance, is a direct reproduction of what came before it. If a poet sees something they personally (and yes, the definition of poetry is a personal definition) define as poetry, they are likely to incorporate that idea into their own work. As far as my work goes, I define prose poems as poetry by reading authors like Marisol Martinez, Baudelaire, and Rauan Klassnik. It has been said to me that prose poems “eliminate” poetic tools. I disagree. Prose poems operate on a different set of terms and repurpose those tools into a language form. Prose strives to make logical sense, but prose poetry relies on emotion and image to operate.

3)      "Poetic language is language in which meaning refuses to be single-minded: the transitivity of meaning splits, as we mean more than we intend."

-Heather Mc Hugh Broken Language

               Poetry does not operate in the way of right and wrong. There are more than two ways to interpret a poem. It is completely valid for you to look at my work and say, “I think my sister is about to cut her ears off and feed them to her cat.” But that reading of my work does not invalidate my work as “art,” or even as good art. Different readers may get different emotions, and therefore ideas, from my work. I might have intended some of them and not others. This does not bother me. I do not need to have control over how people read my work.

4)      "But ultimately a very bad poem is more than one that violates literary conventions, poetic meter, and grammatical rules. It contains an element of art-- that certain something that marks the poem as a masterpiece. As with great art, we can't exactly define a very bad poem except to say we know one when we see one."

 

-        From the introduction of Very Bad Poetry edited by Kathryn and Ross Petras (The author of the introduction was not listed.)

 

When discussing what art is, it can be helpful to discuss what art is not. I’m not sure that you ever studied “The Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp. Once you Google it I know you will say, “A urinal mounted to a wall is NOT art.” A portion of the art world disagrees with you. Art is where the artist sees emotion and meaning. It is for the viewer to examine in a heightened awareness. The same goes with any work, especially poetry. A poem becomes a poem when someone decides the language has poetic meaning. That does not make it a poem the world will value and call “good poetry.” It simply makes the language a piece of art.

 

5)      "I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

 

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

 

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means."

 

-        From “Introduction to Poetry” from Poetry 180 by Billy Collins

Now that we have discussed what poetry is, here is my one tip for how to read it.  It is possible to delve so logically into a poem that you lose a sense of the emotion that is being given to you. My advice, is stay in the moment as long as you can. Experience everything in the poem as many ways as possible to get the richest experience.

 

Love,

Kidlit