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What Makes Poetry?

Posted on 14/12/2011 by admin

People will go into reams of analysis about poetry and I will say now, more people know more about the analysis, syntax and grammar of poets than I ever will. They know a good deal about the history and the various verse forms from all around the world but none of these things are what makes poetry, because if there were no languages there would still be poetry.

Before you say that must be ridiculous remember who created these verse forms – poets. They were not waiting for the language before they expressed themselves because it is the intellect of the poet that makes poetry and they make that poetry with their entire lives. With their ideas which they relay to us with words, but not just words which is why we can call Chopin the ‘poet of the piano’. The poet will express their poetry in anything and everything they can because it is not words that make poetry, but the mind of the poet and the poet is made from birth, and through experience, and in living.

We can copy them of course,and sound like them but very few individuals in this world think like them or have their courage, to chance everything on a line, to forgo companionship and any semblance of the happiness conforming can give to one, for a life of ideas that few will understand for a hundred years.

It is a lot to ask, which is why no one is ever asked to be a poet.

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4 thoughts on “What Makes Poetry?”

  1. Debbie O. says:
    15/12/2011 at 02:50

    I love this line! “Because it is not words that make poetry, but the mind of the poet and the poet is made from birth, and through experience, and in living.”
    please check out my blog.

    Reply
    1. Daniel says:
      15/12/2011 at 07:10

      Thank you, I visited your weblog and wish you well with your work.

      Reply
  2. Debbie O. says:
    15/12/2011 at 02:50

    I love this line! “Because it is not words that make poetry, but the mind of the poet and the poet is made from birth, and through experience, and in living.”
    please check out my blog.

    Reply
    1. Daniel says:
      15/12/2011 at 07:10

      Thank you, I visited your weblog and wish you well with your work.

      Reply

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About me

Children’s author, novelist, editor and poet.

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