Janet Burroway lists down several definitions of what a poem is in her Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft (New York: Penguin Academics, 2003). Some of these are:
- the natural language of all worship
- devil’s wine
- an imitation of an imitation
- more philosophic than history
- painting that speaks
- a criticism of life
- fine-spun from a mind at peace
- a way of taking life by the throat
- the language of an act of attention
- an escape from emotion
- the antithesis to science
- the bill and coo of sex
- a pause before death
- poetry is memorable speech (from W. H. Auden)
Aim your sight at one of these creatures (I mean, definitions) — the one that you think and feel closely resembles what poetry is for you. Then try to pin it down by writing what you think may pass itself off as a poem, using the idea or what images may be triggered by the creature’s (again I mean definition’s) words caught in the crosshairs of your gun’s sight.
Then click on any prey at Blogroll for who gets bragging rights. Brag or comment away.
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i forgot, you won’t find it in any of the blogroll sites. you’ll find them here.
here’s ass howl’s definition:
A Pause Before Death
the unwanted words I keep erasing
on the edges of my tongue
killing the words till they bleed
like tattoos and failures
falling, breaking into pieces
crawling in my fingertips
like a taste of a pagan god
in these hands sweating of madness
waiting for the cure
a digression towards immortality
*not bad for a first (at least in this class) attempt. i like the image generated in the first two lines, though i would change the word “unwanted.” but then these images of words on the “edges of my tongue” is not sustained, so the whole “definition of poetry” goal is not gained.
broodings’s definition (using “an escape from emotion):
Escapee
Scribbles
painted over
white pages.
Of angry lashes
and even
hidden endearments O
tried o repress –
thinking
shouting would do me
no good
more so with brooding.
I created a shell.
Somehow, something
which one cannot
pass through
except I –
trying to escape
intensities both
from wanting
to understand you
and unknowing
your mockery.
These scribbles.
*this is a more sustained definition of what poetry means to broodings, though its intensity (because i think broodings was aiming for that) dissipates somewhat in some lines that do not carry any emotional power: “and even,” “Somehow, something.” also, the tone is not quite right. but if the poem started with the lines “shouting would do me / no good,” then i think the poem would fare better.
digging below gave this definition (no title given):
A second before the rot.
The image of a memory,
Still, unmoved. The vision
of a white heaven and
The screams of hell. A time
Before passing. A pause
before death. The walk
through the mist towards
Eternity, before the
Beginning of an endless
And silent whisper.
*hmmm. this seems more interesting. here, digging below allows the images triggered by the initial definition to play in the mind. this one succeeds more than the previous entries.
killing the light has this to say:
A Pause Before Death
The night was cold and dark
I walked through the dumbness of silence
My soul was pale as the light
From the lampposts that flooded the street
I knew this was not a nightmare
Nor a scene from the old movie we’ve both watched
And I needed to return to my breathless body
To leave the language I have never uttered
To speak the love I have never written
I have to pause before the fangs of death
Gnaw my flesh.
*too expository. we’re being told what we’re supposed to feel rather than letting us experience by ourselves what the lines should evoke. so the poem falls flat. and so the poem remains killing the light’s private experience rather than one that we might also participate in because we’ve also been through such moments. sayang.
Devil’s Wine says:
Devil’s Wine
The letters drip like honey
from the honeycomb of the mind,
Making my mouth salivate
as words vibrate my eardrums.
The thoughts they sew
intoxicate me from within my core
Making my soul feast
on the taste of its ambrosia.
*again, this is telling rather than showing. there’s also some rather odd things: “words VIBRATE my eardrums”? i would’ve wanted devil’s wine to sustain that image of “letters drip[ping] like honey” (though devil’s wine need not say “from the honeycomb of the mind,” which is a rather lame line)
warped opinions had this opinion about what poetry is:
Emptiness
Ten minutes left.
a mind blankly set for poetry
paper decreasing into nothingness
an ink dried up by sober thoughts
nothing to write.
nothing to think.
Five minutes left.
just a knife in my hand
i’m bound to cut my fingers!
fingers! i cut them.
One minute left.
nothing’s left!
just a minute to splatter blood
on this shit of paper!
*i like the dramatic effect, but then we’re told what happens rather than see/feel it as the whole incident unfolds. wouldn’t it have been more effective if instead of saying, like in a radio play, “fingers! i cut them” we have a line like, just a suggestion, “fingers bleeding / lined up like a poem”?
weekend at deepthought say of poetry:
Imitation of an Imitation
Imitation is when you see
someone with a nice piece
of clothing & 2 weeks later
you have one for yourself
Imitation is when that someone
saw that nice piece of clothing
from Bea Alonzo in her soap &
actually thinks it would fit her
body beautifully
Imitation is when Bea, the icon,
worships Kate Hudson from Hollywood
Kate wears something cool on
television one night when Bea was
up and watching
Imitation is when Kate & Bea &
that someone & you were doing
It’s never too late if I’ll have one soon.
Imitation, after all, is the best form of flattery.
*as an attempt to define poetry, this one sticks to a particular metaphor. i don’t know, though, if it succeeds in describing what poetry feels like. i mean, fashion is one thing and passion for poetry is another. or are they like one another.