What Is Poetry? A Rough Draft

Tony Miller
English 210
April 15, 2011

Poetry: What Is It?

Poetry, as one of the most versatile literary media, is a device that everyone thinks they can understand in some form – in fact, an argument could be made that many people’s definitions of poetry falls along the lines of “the subset of things that might be poems which I comprehend.” The Oxford English Dictionary tries to lend some clarity to the matter, stating that poetry is “[i]maginative or creative literature in general; fable, fiction;” “[t]he art or work of a poet;” and “[c]omposition in verse or some comparable patterned arrangement of language in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; the art of such a composition” (“Poetry”). While this is a noble attempt by the dictionary to be inclusive, the Oxford definition is such a non-restrictive clause (pardon the pun) that it is hard to use to pinpoint the bounds of the poetic realm.
This non-restrictive definition is similar to the one espoused by Lyn Hejinian in her introduction to The Best American Poetry anthology in 2004. Hejinian is also the author of My Life, a rather small and autobiographical work which we studied earlier in English 210. On first glance, the work seems to be more prose in form than poetry: words are arranged with punctuation into forms that look like sentences, and these sentences are placed into blocks of text that strongly resemble paragraphs. When one looks at the content, however, it becomes clear that the text is not at all prose, as the sentences do not form nicely into paragraphs or chapters – although they eventually combine to tell the story of a woman that may or may not actually be the author, at times those items which I have been referring to as sentences fail to satisfy the grammatical requirements for that name. From My Life, it is clear that Hejinian’s definition of poetry is based more on form than on content.
For the editor of the previous year’s Best American Poetry volume, Yusef Komunyaaka, the traditional poetic form is not as important as the issues of which it speaks. In his introduction, this poet explains that he feels words spoken or verses written simply for the purpose of creating them – to borrow an art history term, art for art’s sake – are just words and that they cannot mean much unless they make a point. This is similar to another English 210 text, G.C. Waldrep’s Disclamor. In the BOA Editions text, Waldrep dispenses with the traditional notions of stanza and flow, instead creating works which are awkwardly spaced across the page and embody a stream-of-consciousness format that is occasionally more intelligible backward.
Given the constraints imposed on poetry by the above sources, it seems prudent to combine the three reference definitions and say that poetry is this:
Imaginative or creative literature in verse which responds to a social issue, tells a story, or reflects on the actions of an individual or group.

This seems to incorporate all three of the works included above, while still including the vast majority of the Thoreaus, Frosts and Eliots we are taught in grade school. A major consideration there is that of literature in verse – this is the gate that lets Longfellow’s Paul Revere through but keeps out Ebenezer Scrooge.
Both my Against Forgetting poet, Pablo Neruda, and my Individual Poetry Project poet, Todd Davis, align more closely to a mainstream poetry definition akin to the additional wordsmiths above rather than the style of Hejinian or Waldrep. Neruda in particular was known to broach a number of social causes, being a fervent Communist in an era when Chile was particularly anti-Communist; Davis sings a song of the environment in an era when all of us know it is changing, but fewer of us want to change our behaviors to reverse this. Both of these poets deserve to have more written about them, and they will get their time when this paper’s rough draft is not competing with other final drafts.

Works Cited

Hejinian, Lyn. Introduction. Lyn Hejinian and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2004. New York: Scribner, 2004. 9-14. Print.
Hejinian, Lyn. My Life. Los Angeles: Sun and Moon, 1987. Print.
Komunyakaa, Yusef. Introduction. Yusef Komunyakaa and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2003. New York: Scribner, 2003. 11-21. Print.
"Poetry, n.". OED Online. March 2011. Oxford University Press. Web. 14 April 2011.
Waldrep, G.C. Disclamor. Rochester, N.Y.: BOA Editions, 2007. Print.