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A quick look through much of what passes for "poetry" might give you the impression that poetry is merely prose with the line breaks in funny places. Or, to put it another way...
Obviously, that isn't poetry. But what is? There are people who will tell you that the form of poetry doesn't matter, that all that matters is the poet's self-expression. "Expressing yourself" and "expressing your feelings" are held to be the highest form of art. Hogwash. That is self-indulgence, vanity, and less. A two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum is expressing himself. In its lesser forms, poetry is entertaining. The humblest of grade-school doggerel, the raunchiest limerick, is more true poetry than that narcissistic "self-expression". In its highest form, poetry encapsulates experience and transmits it intact to the reader, bypassing thought and reason and driving straight for the heart. THAT is poetry. Shakespeare and Kipling and Service and Burns and many other celebrated poets wrote true poetry. Self-indulgence produces only drivel. |