What+is+a+poem?

Before reading "Colonel" today I had always thought of a poem as something with some sort of strict form with a rhyme scheme or internal sounds or some carefully crafted antic that I could not begin to understand. But after seeing the way that "Colonel" was just arranged in the form of a paragraph, I realized that there are really no requirements for a poem. Anything can be a poem as long as one person thinks that it is. I thought that "Colonel" was definately a poem. Perhaps the fact that it is in the poetry book helped me to believe this, but reading it sealed my opinion. I think that because it is in the form of a paragraph, we read it for the content, the story instead of the rhyme scheme or the internal effects. I like this because although it still felt like I was reading a poem, I was thinking only about what was happening in the story.

I like the fact that when she wrote this poem, Forche did it in an extremely unorthodox way so that she could still tell the gruesome event that she experienced, yet she did not buy into what the colonel said about writing the poem. I think this is an intriguing poem because the first read through it caught my attention with the event, but each additional read added something new. For example I did not understand the line from the colonel about adding this to her poetry until I read it a few times. This poem fits my definition of a good poem because it is understandable the first time, but has more meaning each additional time.1203643185

I will turn, for the moment, to Mr. Wendel Berry. "It may be, then, that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course." (//Poetry and Marriage// 205). Forche's piece is difficult to accept because of its form. I do believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) that today in class we learned that Forche did not write this specifically as a poem. Yes, this is open verse, so no, there were not rules, but she did not follow traditional poetic rules. Does this make it any lesser of a poem? Berry describes the use of a form as, "What appeared for a time perhaps to be mere dutifulness, that dried skull, suddenly breaks open in sweetness--and we are not where we thought we were, nowhere that we could have expected to be." (206) But Forche is exactly where she expected to be. She wrote it the way she wanted. Can it serve the purposes of a poem if it was not intended to be one? What are the purposes of a poem, come to think of it? Is a piece's purpose determined by its category or its content?

Let's turn our attention to the Blank Verse. Is it true that the less rules there are, the less baffling can occur in the writing process, and the less baffling, then the less can be gotten out of it? What does this say about the blank verse? Upon reflection, this whole post seems a tad off-topic and abstract as a reply to mha, but what are your thoughts? 1203645807

In response to mha, I also thought Colonel was clearly a poem. You mentioned that it was good because you got something new out of it each time. When I read this statement I thought about what Br Tom said in class today about Stafford’s statement. Something about how poetry requires a certain amount of attention from the reader. My class accepted this as a good definition of poetry, and I think it takes in your statement of poetry as well. As far as KLe’s questions, I have no positive answer. One stance I can take is saying that it is still a legitimate poem even if the poet didn’t intend it to be that way. To me, a poem is something that uses creative language to captivate the reader, and present some idea, story, or thought. This topic is a little messy because that definition could describe some prose as well, but I think poems are something we can all automatically tell by looking and reading them. 1203647008

Unlike the previous poster, I was very much unsatisfied with Stafford's statement. This "certain" attention is neither defined nor restricted in any way. In my mind, a former poet laureate would have to come up with a more specific definition than that (his poetry was great no doubt, I just question his analysis and theories about it.) I certainly gave a "certain" attention to Jacobs Room, but that doesn't make it poetry (though it might be in some way). I prefer Mark Flanagan's definition: "Poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response. Poetry has been known to employ meter and rhyme, but this is by no means necessary. Poetry is an ancient form that has gone through numerous and drastic reinvention over time. The very nature of poetry as an authentic and individual mode of expression makes it nearly impossible to define." It of course, requires a "certain" attention to it. Even Flanagan's definition is very broad, and hardly excludes most novels. Also, I disagree with kec's statement that poems are something we can all automatically tell by looking at and reading. Certainly if you read Colonel as a diary entry as it once was, you would not automatically assume that it was poetry. Even Forche didn't recognize it as poetry until a friend did (possibly the same friend as in the poem? does anyone know?). Sometimes one must be told something is poetry to realize its poetic quality. I would be open to argument about any of our novels being poetry so far, except possibly Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Invisible Man. Sometimes poetry is in the eye of the beholder. 1203650316

For me it was easier to accept Forche's poem as a poem because I did not see the poem itself because I did not have my book with me at the time. Not seeing the poem allowed me to be free of any of the preconceived notions of what a poem should be because when most of us hear that we are reading a poem, we expect there to be stanzas and traditional line breaks, yet when we looked at Forche's poem, we immediately had our skepticisms because of its paragraph format. But it is as MHa states, the definition of a poem is completely dependent on the individual and his or her personal views on a poem.

Regarding KLe's question about whether the less rules that occur, the less baffling will occur as well. To me I think this is the opposite case because oftentimes we draw some of our interpretations from the form and its rules. Since each form serves a particular purpose, some poems work better with certain forms than others, making it easier to draw certain conclusions. With blank verse, there are far fewer rules for us to draw certain meanings from. It was Shepard who described poetry as a field of meanings, and to me each rule and restriction placed upon the poem is a fence or wall that reduces the amount of "wandering" we can do. But if that field is open, then it is easier for us to get lost since there is not a predetermined path. Or some markers to guide us along at the very least.user:MSu-c

I think we had a good conversation about what a poem is today in class. I guess I have never really questioned it because I don't think I have ever really had enough interest in poetry to ponder the question. I have always just sort of read and analysed the poems I was given in my English classes, taking my teacher's word for it each time. But now that I think about it a little more, I would have to say that poetry, in terms of its definition as an art, is like music. There is the mainstream, but then there are the fringes of the art that some people would consider "just noise." But to some it is still music. The same holds true for poetry. There is the mainstream, but there is also the new and different that is very different from the mainstream poetry. In both situations I do not think it is fair to exclude some works of art as not "music" or not "poetry." In my opinion, the definition needs to stay fluid and ambiguous. Otherwise, you impede the progress of the arts. And allowing obscure poetry be "poetry" doesn't hurt the art either. It doesn't destroy the great works of Milton and Shakespeare before it and it also doesn't require you to read these poems. Just let it be...1203706180

I think that the problem that a lot of people are having with defining a poem is that there is no definate line between poetry and prose. We would like to have this easy definition, and put all the poems on one side, and all the prose on the other, but I think there is this wide range of prosey poetry, and poetic prose that could easily be called one or the other. I don't think that there is any way that we can just start sorting things, and I don't think that it really matters. Categorizing the writing seems to me to be one of the least important things to actually understanding it, and I think there are more important things that we need to ask ourselves before we try to classify something, like what does this mean or what is the author saying. 1203883634

I personally had trouble with accepting the colonel poem as a poem by definition. I do not see anything in it that classifies it as such. Regardless, though, I agree with what most people say about a baffling poem being the best. It provides the most material to work with and to think about. Sure, someone can just straight out say something, but for whatever reason, people generally do not take it seriously unless it is written in some poetical, "deep" form that they have to unlock to understand the meaning. Ironic. But otherwise, many would see some ideas and cliche' and disregard them.

All in all, I like that poetry is like this. It is what makes it an "experience" and what makes it art because it is a creative expression of thought. Often, one can even find meaning and purpose through the process of studying the language and possible explanations/interpretations along the way. I like the way __The Making of a Poem__ describes this: "poetic form is a continuum, and not a finished product" (260 in Open Forms). Poetry never ends, in a sense, because it can be subjective; it can have a field of meanings; it is a sort of stream-of-consciousness itself.1203993701

I agree with sfa with her definition of poetry as "an experience". Defined by dictionary.com, 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." But perhaps a better way to discover what poetry is is through negation, discovering what poetry is not. Poetry is not prose, and prose, defined by dictionary.com is "Commonplace expression or quality."

Taking these two definitions, I would have to say that most poetry is not a stream of consciousness because a stream of consciousness is generally done in common way, in the way that most easily flows out one's head. Poetry, by contrast, is art with words. As we have learned throughout this blank verse chapter, art does not have to confined by certain parameters such as a specific rhyme, meter, or even a specific verse, hence the name blank verse. What makes certain poems, such as the colonel poem, poems is their artistic composition. For example, in the colonel poem, Forche conveys the oppression of the colonel using "vivid and imaginative" use of ears as a symbol by the colonel as well as the other symbols that convey this oppression in the short snippet of text. I do not think it is fair to say that this poem is not poem because it is filled too much with artistic elements. Its ideas are not expressed in a "commonplace" way.1204068064

I too enjoy the notion that even if one person thinks it is a poem than it is a poem. That's probably the most amazing, interesting thing about poetry for me is it's versatility and flexibility. The idea that one set piece of writing, the same for everyone to read, can be interpreted in so many different mind. It's a concrete way to demonstrate the creative and intellectual power of the human mind, because we think for ourselves and take the exact same input and come our with many, many different outputs. In a way, a poem does more than just sit on a page it jumps into our head and kicks into gear, and this notion also makes poetry really an intensely personal, individual experience.1204083958

Although I agree with that idea, is it not the same for prose? Can't most prose be interrpreted in many different ways by different people. Can't we consider prose versatile and flexible? I think that we can; but we have been conditioned not to. We have always learned that a story has a meaning that is not up for debate. Once someone decides what the meaning of a story is, we as readers must accept that meaning. I think that this creates a barrier in our thinking, once we have found the accepted meaning of a story, we usually stop looking. By doing this, are we holding ourselves back from finding additional meanings? Why does there only have to be one meaning to a story or other piece of prose. Why can't we analyze prose and find different meanings like we do with poetry? If we can consider anything poetry, then shouldn't we be able to analyze something and find many different meanings to it? I think that when thinking about prose we need to get past the idea that there is only one right meaning. The meaning of a story should be whatever the reader gets out of it, there should be many acceptable meanings.1204146085

I suppose I can understand how "The Colonel" could be a poem. I mean, it's clearly Blank Verse, and a lot of people (myself included) sometimes have a lot of trouble distinguishing the difference between Blank Verse and prose, but there seems to be some sort of organization to it that doesn't involve simply taking prose and making it into a column. There is some sort of pattern that Forche was following in her head, and although "The Colonel" is clearly not what the stereotypical poem looks like, I still believe that it's just a Blank Verse poem. They all kind of look like prose squished together to me, and I feel that this one still applies. 1204162192

I suppose the main reason I can accept that this was a poem is that I was told it was by a figure of authority in the field of literture. I think the biggest struggle foe me in seeing as a poem was the way it appeared in the page. I am so used to seeing the stanzas and grouping of lines that his was a bit harder to accept. If some one had told me that they they wanted to read me a poem in blank verse and then commenced to read "The Colonel". I would have no trouble agreeing that it was a poem. If i had not seen the way it appeared on the page, it would not be such a problem for me. 1204168409

For me, the only requirement for a poem to be a poem is that it has a rhythm. Just because a poem is not broken up into separate stanzas doesn't mean that it isn't a poem. Any piece of prose with a solid rhythm or beat, for me, is poetry. Besides rhythm, even excluding blank verse, there is not real universal requirement for being a poem. Not all poems rhyme, are divided into stanzas, or even organized into sentences. Poetry has a flexibility that allows it to adapt with the times: that is why we have so many different styles of poetry from so many different time periods. When one style of poetry began to grow stale, a new one merely took its place. Ironically, it is this constant evolution and change that makes poetry so inaccessible to the masses: like most things are always new--art--poetry is usually only appreciated by the upper class artistics, and only after a poem form has been around for a while is it begun to be embraced in the general public. By the time this happens, however, that style of poetry is no longer on the cutting edge. It is this tendency to always be pushing the art form that has allowed poetry to remain so relevant for so long, and if that means have a blank verse poem about severed ears, so be it. 1204173596

Well, thankfully, there's no dispute about what makes a poem for most of the stuff we read, but yeah, some other stuff, especially 'freestyle' blank verse is really hard to tell, and honestly, I think at that level, unless there's some heavy iamb or something in there, it's very nice prose, but not really poetry. Poetry should have a structure, invented or adopted, but one which brings out the best of the sounds of the words and the imagery that they conjure, not just one or the other. Random syllables ain't poetry, vulgar sounding words of flowery things, unless! this is part of the message/meaning. But it's gotta have some form to it, or else anything is a poem, and honestly, not everything's a poem, and it's not all relative either. Also, when you get to haiku's and couplets, and other little poems, you're getting real close to the borderline, but that stuff is still safe. It's when you claim that you can take a passage out of a book and call it a poem that you're in trouble in my book, least that's my two cents. 1204252840

Defining what is poetry and what isn't poetry is a tough subject. I know that I struggle when it comes to certain "poems." In __The Making of a Poem__ I realized that there are so many different forms a poem, and there are so many works that fit under those categories. However, when I look at those categories as a whole, I have trouble believing that they are poetry. It all goes back to how everyone is taught that all poems rhyme. What a misconception after studying this book. Many categories of poems in the book do have a rhyming scheme, but then there are others that seem so botched up and do not flow or have any kind of melody at all. The poems in those categories that are botched up and lack melody are the ones that I have the most trouble understanding and enjoying as I read them. They may fit the rules of their category, but that doesn't mean that they have to be considered poems. They could just as easily fall under prose or simply works of writing. I guess I just like the concrete idea of a poem rhyming. It's just something I've always heard. This whole book has been quite a shock to my view on poetry.1205442307