it doesn't dam rivers

it doesn't end poverty

it doesn't have any effect on the current carbon D levels present in the oceans...

...reality is that it is like healthcare - a two tier service which either serves the crowd or the private paying magazine folk

either way...

what's the point of it?

Would you care to elaborate?
Or
Come now, negativity never solved anything.
Or
Have you proof of poetry's ineffectuality other than hearsay and apocryphal stories?
Or, I believe a small boy prevented a dam from bursting by plugging it with his finger and I believe that boy went on to write poetry so there may well be a connection qua that boy was already a poet at heart (potential) and he did the poet's deed qua altruism.

I think there is a point to be made here.

A lot....no, the vast majority of poetry is self-indulgant. Poetry is a medium that allows for that because there's no controls and people saying oh that's awful or uninteresting. Anyone can write it. However, even self indulgant poetry can be cathartic, so it does have a point.

Now if you look at poetry from the laureates, they are meant to chronicle the events during their tenure in verse. Andrew Motion, if I'm honest I think failed to produce anything of any real interest or importance, BUT that's the purpose of the laureate's poetry.

The poetry written for magazines or events is meant to entertain...for the most part...and so that is the point of that.

And the point I'm making?

It depends on the writer. Unfortunately, I think the VAST majority is detritus and often the 'avant guarde' or 'free verse' poetry is why poetry as a genre is not a popular as it was decades/centuries ago. It scares and bores people. However, I feel that most writers know the point of their own work so why not ask them.....oh wait you have!

Quick to condemn but would you staunch a leaking dam?
As one of the poets you appear to dismiss I suggest that the medium can accommodate all-comers. It's the uniqueness of perspective that is so important. Also, who can say how poetry is going to evolve? And who has the right to rubbish genuine attempts at communication in whatever art form they arise?
And 'self-indulgent'? What do you mean exactly?
Your generalisation here is self-indulgent, surely?

Hey never said I was any good, I'll leave that to the world to decide. If anything, whilst I do not like the fact that there is so much 'self-indulgant' poetry I do support it and can see the 'point' of it.

To clarify my term 'self-indulgant' I see any personal 'my life is so hard/good/replete with good works/ephemeral' poems as 'self-indulgant'. I like poetry that says something important, or conveys something profound. I like 'art'. If you look at portraits they are not art they are comments and declarations, and very few have or can actually be called 'art', it is the same with poetry. For me a poem actually has to tell or show me something. Of course that doesn't devalue other forms of poetry e.g. comedic, I still enjoy it.

Please don't think I'm just and arrogant #!@*£ because, whilst I am, the comments put forth by me are just opinion. I just try to put a reason to it....regardless of it's twisted logic.

All art is self-indulgent.

Poetry makes nothing happen (Auden)

BUT

People die from lack of it (W C Williams)

A poem should not do but be (Conrad Aitken?)

BUT

Do be do be do (Sinatra)

Poetry rinses the language (Emily Dickinson)

BUT

My poetry gives a blue rinse to the language (John Ashbery)

Poetry allows us to express what we are unable to express by any other means...?

Poetry is about language. It's not about being relevant or irrelevant. It's about dancing the fandango with words, imagining new sentences, making old songs sound like they were written just a minute ago.

Is poetry just a function of our inbuilt need / tendency to observe patterns in sound vision and hearing, (and maybe touch)?
Our ancestors saw the image of a swan, or Orion's Belt in a constellation of stars.
We need to sense rhythm in a piece of music.
A child will babble in a rhythmic or tuneful way before he or she has even learned to speak a single word.
An impatient person will tap fingers, or feet, or sway, in order to express frustration/unsatisfied feelings.

Is poetry 'doing what comes naturally' ?

What is the point of anything? Art,Music,Theatre,etc.?
I'm no expert, but surely writing Poetry is a way of expressing ourselves verbally or on paper, and in doing so conveying emotion creatively to others?

Or we could be readers of Poetry only and feel helped or gladdened by the sheer enjoyment of the act of reading it?

Personally Poetry gives me insight and inspiration
whenever I hear or read it!

Can make me happy,reflective,sad,thoughtful,and more besides,but that's just me!

Poetry's when the alphabet goes psychic. Of course, it's sometimes -- and frequently -- fraudulent. It has no point other than to suggest there might be some contact between deceased alphabet/ideogram/hieroglyph/rune etc sequences and the current lot. It is cold reading for the most part.

There is no point whatsoever to poetry. It's self indulgent poppycock, a catlyst for ego generation and the proclamation of wannabe intellect or genius, notwithstanding a burning desire for popular local and national celebrity...

So Big Ed the Scouse Brickie building my garage says... so it must be right.

I meant 'psychotic.'

Moxy my little rabbit
my princess of enlightenment.
You'll be telling me that Zippity doo dah is'nt French next.

It actually means ...Your flies are ajar.

We used to collect wasps in ours... but only in August and only in France.

Will send that doo dah off to you soon...
Gusx

Apologies, Gus, edited the comments that you responded to. Misread your posting (Ed aka garage bloke not bricky bloke) -- just rehomed 4 ex-battery hens and it's a bit (gloriously) chaotic here! My mind is more of a playpen for mayhem today.

What's the point of writing poetry?

Well, a better question is: why do we write poetry?

And the answer, I think, and certainly for me, is: "Because we have to."

Writing poetry is a compulsion, a need to express and, for some, a need to emote.

So what is the point of poetry? For people who like to read or consume poetry, there are lots of points to it, including: comfort; inspiration; trying to think of and see things in a non-obvious way; a search for hidden (or poetic truth); amusement; pleasure in the written word; pleasure in radical concepts and expressions of philosophy; and the fact that poetry gives us the opportunity to engage in art, which, as we are the only species on Earth able to do so, is surely worth the effort.

Cynthia's Concept of Poetry


I believe that poetry uniquely expresses our understanding of life, our individual way of coping with the human condition. Poetry must be provoking. Its expressions may be deeply considered before finally being committed to words, or they may be a flash of revelation when the words come seemingly unbidden to your mind. Once a poet grasps an insight, there is a driving passion to share it, to communicate the perceived greater depth of understanding. A good poem speaks at many different levels. According to personal experience, the reader will peel away layers of meaning – physical - emotional – social – spiritual – philosophical. Conversely, a good poem is absorbed so subtly into the reader’s own psyche that it allows for instantaneous bi-lateral feed-in. It must have connotative power.

Except for the rigid analysis of poetry according to ‘established rules’ of structure and imagery, so-called good and bad poetry is entirely subjective. However, I do think good poetry in any form will always possess an insight of universal thought, an effect of effortless scripting of the right word in exactly the right place, striking imagery of sight and sound, and a pleasing flow of musical assonance and rhythm. Because this last point might separate most clearly the genre of poetry from prose, I believe the visual presentation of poetry is vital for its definition. The eye must be just as keen an interpreter of the element of music as the voice.

Finally, good poetry must leave a feeling with the reader as though one has just talked with a good friend, the aftertaste of a valued personal connection. This human connection surpasses all other criteria.




Cynthia Buell Thomas

"Cynthia's Concept of Poetry


I believe that poetry uniquely expresses our understanding of life, our individual way of coping with the human condition. Poetry must be provoking. Its expressions may be deeply considered before finally being committed to words, or they may be a flash of revelation when the words come seemingly unbidden to your mind."

You what? Have you even read half the crap that gets put out there? Those are fine words and strong sentiments, but so few people go back and reread what they've written and check if it actually does any of those things.

Whoa there, DG. Cynthia was positting a 'concept' of poetry, not a 'definition'. In that sense it can encompass an idealistic preference, rather than a blanket description. Any 'definition' of poetry would have to be a lot shorter than that, and a damn sight more specific, in order to also cover the 'crap' of which you speak.

I agree with much of Cynthia's concept, but would add comments about musicality and intellect.

I have an opinion about what the point of poetry is to me. But I can well imagine it has other points for other people.
When I began writing poetry I just loved being able to create something whole and complete, that captured a thought or an image. At other times I have written down a summing up of complicated feelings, or ideas that I wanted to share, but nobody to share them with. These are points about writing poetry, but there are other reasons for reading poetry. I can see the point of listening to others' poetry, because it tells me a lot about inner worlds they explore. Also when I now read stuff I wrote maybe thirty, forty years ago, sometimes it captures for me how I was then. So it is a bit like a diary.
Only a few of these seem to say something for others to appreciate. Putting poetry on the blog here for others to comment on, what is the point of that? Maybe finding out if something you wrote resonates with some people, while chancing the comments of others who may react negatively.
What is the point of commenting on poetry that you don't like, except when you can be constructive, and suggest ways that would make the poem come alive to you?
Freda

Siren's concept of poetry....

Half a Day

How could we think Poetry obsolete
When not half a day goes by without its
Influence apparent, making complete
Thoughts which otherwise come in staggered fits?

This eternal bridge between life and art
Straddles a river of random ideas,
A spitting swirl of molecular parts
Which loses meaning as the cold sea nears.

Yet sense is gleaned from this torrent of chaos
By the imposition of grace and form.
Instinctively, in our hatred of loss,
We ply the divine, it becomes the norm.

For love, death, war and the raw joy of birth
Verse has long been the mode of connection
But every small thing we perceive on earth
Is blessed by Poetry’s sought perfection.

Like all real things the mask of morality
Sits loosely upon its unchanging face
It knows truth is its own reality
Distinct from the mores of the human race.

Hence, advert jingles jangle in the mind,
Alliterated headlines mould the news,
Just as exasperated students find
Scant reward from obscure Poetry’s clues.

Songs of war can lead men on to their death
Strident sirens for a sexless passion
Which ends not in life but extinguished breath
These limitless shapes which poetry fashions!

The very first words which an infant speaks
Will more than likely be a little rhyme
Each ‘dada’ and ‘mama’ and ‘baba’ reeks
Of the links between thought and sound and time.

It is there in the metre of the joke
And roughhouse rancour of factory swearing,
It is there in the songs of country folk
And wit of gents with elegant bearing

It follows the arc of the circling moon
And the phoenix blush as the sunrise wakes.
It will long outlive every lifelong tune;
Poetry is the music our thought makes.

Très bien!
This verse is superb...

'Like all real things the mask of morality
Sits loosely upon its unchanging face
It knows truth is its own reality
Distinct from the mores of the human race'.

I was broadly in agreement with Cynthias ideas and was just stirring things. You know what I'm like.

"Finally, good poetry must leave a feeling with the reader as though one has just talked with a good friend, the aftertaste of a valued personal connection. This human connection surpasses all other criteria. "

Oh no no no no no no no no no, Cynthia. Oh no no no. Argh ye gods and goddesses ye empty nozzles and gurgle midges NO!

Poetry is, as Gertude Stein says in Tender Buttons, 'Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.'

And, 'Not a little fit, not a little fit sun sat in shed more mentally.'

Not forgetting,
'Kind in height, kind in the right stomach with a little sudden mill.'

What a prescriptive, narrow, mean, clamped, culled, boiled-down, stumped, withered thing poetry would be if it 'must leave a feeling with the reader as though one has just talked with a good friend, the aftertaste of a valued personal connection. This human connection surpasses all other criteria' That's one notch up from a greeting card.

Poetry is otherness and nothing of craic/blarney/tete a tete/natter/giblets-to-giblets with a friend. As the semi-divine Gertrude Stein also says, 'The difference is spreading.'

Moxy, you are really funny. I loved the explosion of disagreement. I could picture you kicking the floor with your heels.

I certainly get the impression that you consider Gertrude Stein to be a 'good friend'. I wasn't advocating 'schmaltz' but any honesty that connects the minds and emotions of people: bitter, sweet, bitter-sweet etc. etc. etc. Acknowledging your clear point, I shall be more specific in a recap of Concept.

Thanks a mill for being interested enough to respond. I read your comments in all areas of wol and find them very interesting ... very diverse in approach. Are you, in fact, just one person?

Siren - Wow! and gazillions of 'wows' What a poem!

Martin Amis claims the relationship between the writer and the reader is one of 'love'. At least he's on your side, Cynthia.


And thanks for the comments re 'Half a Day'. I do sort of believe what is in there but it is really a parody of the Romanticism of John Keats & Co. Not a very close one, though.

Sadly, Gerty is as emotionally close to me as a dust cover. Can't stand the woman, she is every kind of sudden daintiness and her stomach is like a biting cloud. She's no friend of mine. I prefer Alice B. Toklas (or' Alas' as I call her when she is lax and streaky, or 'Atlas' when she is having one of her topographic spells and is all over local detail in general, not only relief but also vegetative and manufactured features, usually when she's cooking...) Scrap that, I don't even like her.

No. I have never felt poetry was a funicular into my affections.

And I am but one person. But scattered. Like sentient ashes.

Amis is amiss. A mash. A word shovel. A mulch. A belch. You can safely ignore him.

Good grief, Moxy, take a breath. Have a banana milkshake or something smooth and creamy. (Oooohhhh ... the sexual underbelly.)

A taost toast to Purple Ronnie, then (that is, one hand clapping, the other cupped).

....and some tender chocolate buttons?

Exactly, Siren! An 'elephant beaten with candy.'
'Suspect a single buttered flower...'

Tender Buttons it is.