Bachelor in English as Foreign Language
Literature II
Professor: Sandra Argüello
Student: Sayli
Vargas Pérez
What is Poetry?
“Poetry
is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words”. Robert
Frost
The meaning of poetry is as unique and diverse as every human being is. However, it is remarkable to collect some ideas about the meaning of poetry in order to construct an essential significance.
First, according to “What is Poetry Video” the man
says that everyone knows what poetry is when you see it, and when you feel it. Also,
in the video the guy says that some English poetry has rhyme, and that there
are some poems which do not have any regular rhyme scheme. In the same way,
this man from the video says that in poetry people can write about whatever
they want; since poetry try to figure out different subjects in life. Likewise,
during the video the man quotes some important definitions from famous authors.
For example Samuel Taylor Coleridge who says “poetry is the best words in the
best order”. Similarly, the man from the video quotes other definitions. For
instance, that “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of the emotion. “Words that
sound better and mean more”. “Poetry is something that helps us or save us,
even if we do not know what really is. In the same video, the man remarks
another definition of poetry, and it is “me too”. It means that the word “me
too” is the real value of the poem. It describes a feeling or an emotion that
the reader has felt before and he has not known how to put it into words. In
that era, the man of the video says that the highest accomplishment of the
human intellect is the imagination, and the highest accomplishment of the imagination
is empathy. So, the empathy is the ability of the poem to include you, and it
can describe an experience or feeling other people have experienced as well.
Second,
there is an interesting article, from “The Atlantic” on line magazine, which
was written by Yakich in 2013. In this article the author mentions several
characteristics about poetry and poems. For example, he says that a “poem helps the mind play with its
well-trod patterns of thought, and can even help reroute those patterns by
making us see the familiar anew”. Also, Yakich says that one utility a poem has
it is to express ambiguity, and “ambiguity is not what school or society wants
to instill”. It is what every different people may feel. Likewise, Yakich
writes “if you search Wikipedia for “poem,” it redirects to “poetry”: “a form
of literary art which uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language—such as
phonoaesthetics, sound symbolism, etc.” Fine English-professor speaks, but it
belies the origins of the word. “Poem” comes from the Greek poíēma,
meaning a “thing made,” and a poet is defined in ancient terms as “a maker of
things.” So if a poem is a thing made, what kind of thing is it?” In the same
way, the author says that “a poem is a text—a product of writing and
rewriting—but unlike articles, stories, or novels, it never really becomes a
thing made in order to become a commodity”. Also Yakich remarks that “readers have a certain amount of “freedom” in
navigating the poem. The caveat is that freedom often requires more work, more
self-motivation, and a certain degree of confusion.” In fact, “a poem
still has the ability to surprise, if only for a moment which is outside all
the real and virtual, the aural and digital chatter that envelopes it, and us.
(Yakich, 2013). “In a poem, a word exchanged for another word (even a close
synonym) can alter the entire functioning of the poem”. (Yakich, 2013). In
short, poetry is all the feeling and emotion inside in a poem.
References:
Mark Yakich, (2013). What is a Poem? The
Atlantic. Retrieved Monday 20th, 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/what-is-a-poem/281835/
Video #1 (Part 2) What is
Poetry? Retrieved on Monday 20th, 2014
Good Job Sayli. She nailed it!
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