Defining Poetry What is it?

Answer This React to this word: poetry In your own words, what is the distinction between prose and poetry?

So What? Are the following examples poems? If they are, WHY are they poems? If they are not, WHY AREN’T they poems?

Example A The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Example B I’ve got to heat it up Doctor, got to heat it up I’ve got to rock until you drop Something kinda ooh Jumping on my toot toot Something ‘side of me Wants some part of you When tomorrow comes Baby, I won’t even know your name Baby, so good want to follow on But I’ll never meet you, never see you again If you wanna put a line on me, now no Wait till the band gonna play real slow If you want your hands on me I'm digging you up Cant dance - no pain, no gain, no show Jump to the beat all night don't roll If you wanna handle me You got to keep up

Definitions… From Webster’s Dictionary: “Metrical writing; the product of a poet, writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.” It’s a bit mechanical, isn’t it? More “lofty”… From Aristotle’s Poetics, Chapter 9: “…something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.” From Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, Preface: “Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is the countenance of all Science.”

More definitions… on Form and Function of poetry Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Poetic Principle” “…the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the Intellect or with the Conscience, it has only collateral relations.” Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The Poet” (1841- 1842) “For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem – a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing. The thought and the form are equal in the order of time, but in the order of genesis the thought is prior to the form.”

Even more… the Impact on Reader Emily Dickinson (from The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson: By Her Niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, 1924): “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”

So What Is Poetry? Is it enough to say “I know it when I see it” as an answer regarding poetry? Is the definition subjective? How does one know it when one sees it without knowing what it is? So much depends… On individuals Cultures Literary trends

“Mr. Owl…” So what do I think? This unit will hopefully… I think poetry expresses the soul, our innermost experiences and values, changing our worlds through definition and beauty. This unit will hopefully… Stimulate your thinking about the comprehensive implications of the word poetry. Introduce poetry as a genre. Inspire an appreciative response to the text. Help you shape YOUR OWN definition of poetry. Overcome any poetry anxiety – poetry “stage fright” Underscore the balance of poetry and poetics in a risky world.