What is poetry?
A poem should reflect the craft of the poet, not the poet themselves.

There is no one single thought, sentence, or even paragraph that can define what a poem is. Poetry is multi-levelled, multi-defined and multi-flavoured. There is a kind of poetry for every writer and a kind of poetry for every reader.

If a person who had never met poetry came across Haiku they would say poetry is descriptive, exact, succinct.

Another person not having any experience of poetry that happened upon the epics would say poetry is a rhythmical and very long form of writing, often rhymed and metrical.

If those two persons should meet, each believing they 'know' what poetry is undoubtedly a conversation about poetry would have each believing that they were arguing with a fool! Both would be right!

After years of looking at many forms of poetry and enjoying the challenge of attempting to write in as many styles as I meet along my literary path I can say this about poetry.

Poetry is: rhymed, unrhymed, alliterated, unalliterated, exact in the number of syllable, inexact in the number of syllables, precise in the length of each line, imprecise in the length of lines, rhythmical, unrhythmic, metred, unmetred, black and white, grey, flowery, romantic, realistic, comical, theatrical, ordinary, dramatic, honest, dishonest, cold, warm, hot, thin, slippery, reminiscent, onomatopoeic, bland, bright, long, short, modern, concrete, post-modern, historical, ancient, futuristic and much much more.

A poem is a piece of writing that is not prose. It usually can be described by using several terms from the above list. Each poem or group of poems would be described differently.

I have written Haiku, Limerick, Free Verse, Acrostic, Clerihew, Ballad and...can't remember them all off the top of my head but others too.

I feel that a poem should be crafted with care by the poet, careful selection of words and phrases, careful choice of shape and length and style. A poem should reflect the craft of the poet, not the poet themselves. A poem should project the idea, thought or image that the poet wants it to project upon the screen of the readers mind. If the reader 'doesn't get it' that is not the readers error but rather the poets. The poet must wield the tools of his trade as carefully as Michaelangelo wielded a brush and a brain surgeon his scalpel.

So perhaps a poem can better be defined by the work of the craftsperson who creates it.

A poem is an imaginative piece of writing. The careful use of words, sounds and phrases and an attention to the details of the appearance and presentation of each unit, individually, in groups and in the poem as a whole sets the poem apart from its cousin prose.

Poetry has no obvious practical use unlike its cousin prose, rather it is decorative, reflective, creative and crafted in any one of a myriad of styles.

When read aloud poetry has a quality that is reminiscent of music and song, both of which have many levels and styles of their own.

copyright 21/7/2003