From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.
From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.
I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.
And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.
Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.
It hardly seems worthwhile to point out the shortsightedness of those practitioners who would have us believe that the form of the poem is merely its shape.
The number of people writing poems is vast, and their reasons for doing so are many, that much can be surmised from the stacks of submissions.
I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.
A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.
And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.
I have been eating poetry.
I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony.
A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.
I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.
And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.
Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.
Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.
Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.
© 2020 Inspirational Stories
© 2020 Inspirational Stories