 Poetry: November 15, 2011 Issue [#4716] |
  Poetry
This week: It's ALIVE - Traditional Poetry Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism"
All that I see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Edgar Alan Poe
Greetings, thank you for once again welcoming me as your guest host for this week's WDC Poetry Newsletter.
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Greetings,
I ask you today, is poetry relevant, does it have intrinsic meaning, or is it a mere exercise in mnemonics, a way to show of one's prowess in lexicographical memorization?
Okay, I threw in a couple twenty-dollar words to make a point in response to a question I'll share in due course.
Poetry is: "A verbal composition designed to convey experiences, ideas, or emotions in a vivid and imaginative way, characterized by the use of language chosen for its sound and suggestive power and by the use of literary techniques such as meter, metaphor, and rhyme." American Heritage Dictionary
I hold that poetry's meaning is in the conversation; being in the moment, be it past, present, or future, tangible or ephemeral. The poet paints images in words that a reader/listener can hear, smell, taste, see and envision. Maybe poetry is one epic symphony, where lyric solos and arias rise and fall in rhythmic disharmony across the mountains and valleys of space and time, transcending boundaries forged by humankind and nature.
The poet expresses the outer, transient world within himself and weaves it into something more real. The poet recognizes the patterns where he/she sees it and builds that perception into poetic form that's coherent and persuades listeners of its truth. The mind and spirit are fused with sensuous meaning. All poets borrow, and those who hear and see and taste the rhythm express what they see, hear and believe so that the listener can see, hear and imagine along with him/her.
The life of a poem is measured (yes, pun intended = measured rhythm) by the real significance of its resemblance upon the image on which it is built; the depth of expression, and how it expresses, if not the physical world, then that which can be, should humankind comprehend and embrace its essential nature. That the poet has the ability to hold something in the mind with uncommon sensitivity, with uncommon exactness, and to hold it there by attention to the language in which they're formulated.
Consider the deliberately 'simple' haiku form, in one breath immersion in nature's dance while conveying a message to the listener. Then, should the listener with like mind respond, the answering breath creates a tanka, and the conversation may continue back and forth as a renga.
Consider the continuity of the poem from epic to quatrain or couplet in length, each with lyric tendencies, obvious or subtle, as the poet senses and is compelled to convey by the passion of his/her muse. And, being wordsmiths, we do name those tendencies that become familiar, so listeners can choose to stay for that particular solo of verse. For example, the sonnet, though versatile in its evolution over the past millennium, still 'turns' the other cheek in its myriad evolutions since the time of Petrarch, to rise up and sign the 'blues.'
Consider too the first verse etched in stone somewhere around 2000 BCE, inscribing the oral tradition of verse to print well before Homer's 'Odyssey.'. Do you think the Ur poet who committed to posterity the spoken epic of Gilgamesh, when contemplating the approach to the forest where the battle would be engaged, was sending a coded message along the march of time to be plucked as a grain of sand from the hourglass by Robert Frost after several millennia? Or did Frost, when he conscribed the following moment to paper...
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one, as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
...see the forest through the trees and contemplate the nature of life as a series of choices which each leave [A] Road Not Taken. The poem itself a metaphor for life - was that his intent? We don't know; but the vivid imagery both surface and subliminal, has made of it one.
So, I believe that all poetry has meaning by its very nature, for the poet and the listener both, who carry on together the ars poetica begun millennia ago.
Keep Writing - in the Moment!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Words harvested by the varied traditions of the Muse Poetic in our Community - to be read aloud to embrace the rhythm as seen through the Poet's Eye and I hope you share your comments. Then, finding the rhythm, express your own sensation in the dynamic verse that is traditional poetry
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May your lyric harvest of words be a Living Delight to your Muse Poetic and your listeners.
Remember, the one fixed Rule to bring life to a poem =
Read All Poetry Aloud
Until we next meet,
With a Poet's Eye,
Write On!!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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