Here it is, short succinct, and to the point. Final Paper

Corey Roth

Intro to Literature

Ann Hostetler

4/27/2011

 What is Poetry? A Really Good Question.

Poetry is in and of itself a very hard to define term. It has so much potential for difference and change that chaining to a single list of what is and isn’t poetry is nearly impossible. Luckily the fact that it’s hard to define is actually the key to deciphering what it really is. Poetry is a medium of writing that emphasizes a set of rules that change over time because instead of expecting them to be followed, they actually challenge a poet to break them in creative ways that showcase a mastery over language. It was hard to set to a strict definition because it encourages the definition to be altered by the very people who use it.

So that’s my working definition. My actual definition would be more along the lines that poetry can only be defined by an individual, as every single person will define it differently. Lyn Hejinian seems to agree with me, saying, “poetry has always been so full of energy and so inventive that it is impossible to define poetry once and for all or to delimit its space” (Introduction 2004). This suggests that poetry is a beast that cannot be contained by a strict definition, and instead it is up to each of us as to what poetry really is. Therefore the above working definition would be my individual definition, and I’m sticking with it.

For instance, a large, sentence bound book is not poetry. That is until someone like Lyn Hejinian shows up and writes a poetry book like My Life. A cut up collection of random leaflets isn’t poetry, until Jena Osman arranges it into a poem like “Dropping Leaflets.” Poems usually have structured spacing, but when people like G.C. Waldrep get involved words can appear just about wherever they want to on a page. Non-rhyming lines didn’t used to have a place in poetry until someone invented free verse. Prose used to be just that, prose, but now there’s prose poetry. Poetry can’t be tied down to definition because poets are always bending the current rules, ignoring the old rules, or flat out inventing new ones.

            Poetry, with all its dynamism, can do amazing things. Shakespeare is renowned as the most famous poet of, well, ever, and he used it to create many of the modern words that we use today. He took the rules of his language and he broke them, and we have much of our modern English to thank for it. It can be used to express horror and outrage over a war like what is done by John Balaban with his detailed and terrifying imagery, or to express a connection and loving subservience to life and nature like Billy Collins who uses a quick wit to bring readers to an almost spiritual relation to the world around them. It can be used to capture one’s religiously structured upbringing like many of the authors in A Cappella do. Or it can be used for a purpose, such as calming fear or anger, or seeing into the human soul, which is what Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa believes (Introduction 2003).

            Poetry is ever changing, and its only constant is that very fact: it will always continue to change. Poetry has rules; break them. Poetry has structure; misplace your words. If you do it with intent, with determination, and with a strong understanding of language, well then congratulations, you’ve just written some poetry.

Works Cited

Hejinian, Lyn. Introduction. Lyn Hejinian and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2004. Scribner, 2004. 9-14. Print.

Komunyakaa, Yusef. Introduction. Yusef Komunyakaa and David Lehman, eds. The Best American Poetry 2003. New York: Scribner, 2003. 11-21. Print.