The customary description of poetry runs approximately as follows: “Poetry is the writing of poems, which invoke the projection of experience in a way that stirs the same feelings. For us, such definitions of poetry are artistically and aesthetically far from sufficient and lack the art form’s metaphysical purpose and unique aesthetics.
We have been happily, and fulfillingly, indulged in the literary art form and are desirous of expressing our views on the criteria of its legitimacy by appropriate literary standards, as distinguished from its pretenders, or “faux,’ deceitfully. purported poetics. We have agonized over the eternal publication of ersatz writings, presented as poetry, surprisingly, at times, in recognized scholastic journals.
It may be initially useful, to briefly express our views, on what “poetry” is not, The latter statement has reference to an accumulation of disappointing experiences relative to the”ersatz” pretensions referenced in the prior paragraph, Poetry is not the presentation of eye-catching, irregularly situated lines of words, nor the tactical use of obscure, idiosyncratic or anachronistic language; the latter, purposed to induce the populist reader to accept the writing as erudite and metaphysically poetic. Such literary “snake oil” and arrogantly manipulative misrepresentations, ultimately constituted the catalysis for the present expression of our long-held, agonized critique.
Poetry is the aesthetic expression of the foundational basis of our emotional experience, a distillation of our innermost aesthetic or cognitive feelings, from the residue of general perception, or the mundane. It is, effectively, panning for the bits of precious, emotionally aesthetic gold ore from the heavier earthly sludge of everyday perceived reality.
Our numerous exhortations on the singular impact and emotionally sought perception advanced by the employment of sensitively chosen words,, have no less than existential application in the contextual existence and impact of legitimate poetry, where the projected causation of image and causation of aesthetic feeling is consistent with the poet’s artistic intention.
The successful creation of poetry mandates the principled economy of speech and word imagery, eternally aided by the employment of metaphor and simile, for the artistic abstraction of relevant characteristics. As an illustration of the latter concept, we will take the liberty of reciting an earlier example of the genre of such poetic technique. Instead of a wordy prosaic description of the great beauty of a young daughter, one might, poetically state that” she was a red rosebud on a clump of newly fallen snow.”
The desired rapidity with which the poet requires for his aesthetic image is dynamically controlled by his creation of “meter.” or beat. The most illustrative example of this dynamic technique is demonstrated in Longfellow’s “Hiawatha.” The mere reading of the flow of words invokes the sound of indigenous drumming. Applicable meter may be selected for the appropriately intended mood and message of the verses.
We would invite the reader to illustratively, revisit the scores of poems published by us in this blogspace; perhaps with the suggestion of the well-received seasonal poems for Spring and Autumn, which, notably, are on perennial display in the regular seasonal montage located in the lobby of the Columbia School of Nursing. We hope that we are not overly presumptuous in noting that the display for the intervening season of Summer, features a poem by Walt Whitman,
-p.
plinyblogdotcom 