A Fleeting Glimpse Into Poetry.
What is poetry?
There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" Salvatore Quasimodo said "Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own."
And after long periods of grappling with myself, I realized that whatever definition of poetry I was coming up with was savagely annihilated by a contradictory argument that almost simultaneously followed. And even if I tried to widen the scope of every passing definition, trying to encompass as much as I could I found that a sequence of words failed to encapsulate the true essence of poetry that I felt within. So then I concluded that maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Maybe the definition is irrelevant, it is that splash that poetry creates deep within a reader that is more important to fathom. So what is poetry for or why poetry is so important?
Poetry I find is astonishingly fearless, awfully forthcoming, agonizingly melancholic,infectiously joyous,intensely passionate, miraculously uplifting, profoundly intriguing.
In short it has a wide range of emotions for a reader to experience. It has a power to start a fire in a person's life. It can alter and widen perceptions. It dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind. It dares us to take that flight into the woods you have never explored before, and something you will seldom get an opportunity to do in the day to day life. It entices multiple senses. Evokes strong emotion. Sometimes you feel that your sense of understanding has deepened after reading a good poem. A part of you sometimes dies or maybe a new part of you is born. After that you may never be able to think on the same lines again.
Poetry writing, at least to an infant poet like me is a way to navigate through daily life in a more organized way, maybe channeling catharsis of the past or worry about the future in a sequence of elegantly chosen words, just in an attempt to understand the present more profoundly. Sometimes poetry is like a word- photograph I would paint to capture a particular moment to be preserved forever just to remind myself where I did I stand at that point of time at that point in space, the perceptions I and How have I evolved from then because sometimes a camera is just not enough. But I feel poetry has been needlessly mystified in our culture, to the point where many people imagine that is written by and for an elite group of lofty literary wizards. Or people think a poem is like a piece of code to be deciphered. And if they fail to "get it, it's because they lack the cleverness required to puzzle out the secret message. Thats untrue. I think Poetry is all about interpretation, Its about what you make of the words, it may not always coincide with the ideas with which poet penned it down, but it is in the multiple interpretations that I feel lies the actual beauty of poetry. so, what is poetry for?
I once read somewhere a sentence which I guess sums up the need for poetry. It stated that poetry is for trespassing and being at home at the same time.
What is poetry?
There are as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" Salvatore Quasimodo said "Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own."
And after long periods of grappling with myself, I realized that whatever definition of poetry I was coming up with was savagely annihilated by a contradictory argument that almost simultaneously followed. And even if I tried to widen the scope of every passing definition, trying to encompass as much as I could I found that a sequence of words failed to encapsulate the true essence of poetry that I felt within. So then I concluded that maybe I'm asking the wrong question. Maybe the definition is irrelevant, it is that splash that poetry creates deep within a reader that is more important to fathom. So what is poetry for or why poetry is so important?
Poetry I find is astonishingly fearless, awfully forthcoming, agonizingly melancholic,infectiously joyous,intensely passionate, miraculously uplifting, profoundly intriguing.
In short it has a wide range of emotions for a reader to experience. It has a power to start a fire in a person's life. It can alter and widen perceptions. It dares us to break free from the safe strategies of the cautious mind. It dares us to take that flight into the woods you have never explored before, and something you will seldom get an opportunity to do in the day to day life. It entices multiple senses. Evokes strong emotion. Sometimes you feel that your sense of understanding has deepened after reading a good poem. A part of you sometimes dies or maybe a new part of you is born. After that you may never be able to think on the same lines again.
Poetry writing, at least to an infant poet like me is a way to navigate through daily life in a more organized way, maybe channeling catharsis of the past or worry about the future in a sequence of elegantly chosen words, just in an attempt to understand the present more profoundly. Sometimes poetry is like a word- photograph I would paint to capture a particular moment to be preserved forever just to remind myself where I did I stand at that point of time at that point in space, the perceptions I and How have I evolved from then because sometimes a camera is just not enough. But I feel poetry has been needlessly mystified in our culture, to the point where many people imagine that is written by and for an elite group of lofty literary wizards. Or people think a poem is like a piece of code to be deciphered. And if they fail to "get it, it's because they lack the cleverness required to puzzle out the secret message. Thats untrue. I think Poetry is all about interpretation, Its about what you make of the words, it may not always coincide with the ideas with which poet penned it down, but it is in the multiple interpretations that I feel lies the actual beauty of poetry. so, what is poetry for?
I once read somewhere a sentence which I guess sums up the need for poetry. It stated that poetry is for trespassing and being at home at the same time.
