What goes in this folder

[Sam]

Great!

This is an excellent way to organise folders.

What defines poetry?

[Amelia]

Poetry?
For me, poetry should stop me dead in my tracks,
And make my head spin with lyrical wax,
For the writer, the words probably just tumbled out,
Whilst for me, they lay there and leave me in no doubt,
Whether it rhymes or the words have symmetry,
I know what lies before me is indeed poetry!
A.S.

[Sam]

I'm a great over of poetry, actually, Poetry. I spent my life reading poems and poetics... I'd like to hear from other members what they think about the state of contemporary poetry. I speak from a UK perspective. I have the feeling that on the whole, people don't appreciate poetry as much or in the same way as they used to. Again, this is just a feeling, I am not fully in touch with how young readers approach poetry. So, forgive me if I sound like a grumpy old man (I am and can't/don't want to change that). I remember we used to learn poems by heart. Now it looks like a futile exercise if you ask younger readers. But I remember that gave us something that I think is absolutely necessary in poetry, a sense of rhythm which only comes when you leave the meaning of the poem aside for a second and only focus on its musical quality. People still do it with songs I believe, why not with poems?

[Fergus]

Couldn't agree more Sam and Clive. No longer does a piece have to have the form it once did, the rythmn's that stuck with you.

However, that said, the ability to use free verse, without rythmn and meter still allows for the use of allegory and illusion. In many ways, today's poetry can be more "story telling in short form" draw the reader into a world and allow them to remember/consider a moment, a time, an experience, an emotion right there on the surface.

[Fergus]

Clive wrote: "Don't get me wrong, I'm not against free verse, or any other form of poetry, it's just the overwhelming predominance that saddens me, and the clear lack of thought that seems to go into most of it...."

Totally agree, there is very little around these days that appears to put thought into what is being written. Rather, words are thrown on the page without flow, without meaning, without thought, without feeling.

[Fergus]

Clive wrote: "I know. Some of mine can be months in gestation, days taken finding just the right word, intimation, analogy, etc., whereas much of what I read seems but a half hour's jotting."

Sometimes it falls into place, others, it doesn't "take" for a while.

[Adriano]

Giuseppina wrote: "I'm just re-reading the comments in this thread and with Sheila's last comment, I've decided take off my matron's garments and speak as a reader. I too feel along the lines of most posts.

When po..."

Ooo Matron!

I agree... Poetry must be savoured, not gulped down. There's a poet whom I still haven't cracked, for example W.B. Yeats, and I love him for it! I love him because every time I re-read some of his poems there are still things they hide from me.... It's value for money in my book...

[Adriano]

Clive wrote: "A little comment from Clive's editor, Kit:

How much I agree with so many of the thoughtful comments in this thread. As for poetry taking time to become clear, I've been reading Eliot's "The Waste ..."

Let's try to make this time the April of poetry and bring some lilacs out of the dead land...

[Adriano]

Martin wrote: "What I see as general attitudes to poetry nowadays are two: lots of people say 'I don't like/understand poetry', lots say 'I write poetry' though the quality is often dubious.

Sheila, your point ..."

I always taught the 'Content iamb' mnemonic to my students; I was amazed to see how many of my colleagues had no idea about meter. As to poets, well, they can find it or ask if they are keen and don't know... I'm not serving it on a silver plate :->

[Jeremy]

I'm not sure one can define poetry

one can express likes or dislikes, and have preferred styles or authors etc

I recently read a very interesting interview with ted hughes in the paris review in which he pointed out that he would have experimented more with his writing had he not been cowed by expectation - and he pointed out that it s a very brave writer who dare break out of the self censorship implicit with being discovered