Poetic Justice

[FictionJunction]

Regardless of what the so-called experts refer to as art or poetry, one cannot really have a strict definition of neither.

Poetry is a skill. Not everyone can be a poet; this is why I admire people who are capable of tailoring sonnets, epic poetry, and such. However, not all 'sub-divisions' of poetry are at the same level. In fact, some are a lot easier to do than others. As I mentioned before, poetry is a skill that only few can perform, thus giving everyone the chance to be masters of a skill makes the skill lose its specialness. For this case, I will set my eyes on Free Verse.

Free verse (also at times referred to as vers libre) is a term describing various styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or rhyme, but that still are recognizable as 'poetry' by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be part of a coherent whole.

You see, Free Verse can have any shape or form. Any meter, any rhyme scheme, or no scheme at all. There is no pattern to it. It is quite obvious that one of the greatest difficulties that apply when tailoring poetry is finding the right words to express your thoughts in a certain pattern. Simply put, it's patterned expression. Stripping poetry of its pattern is stripping poetry from its genuineness.

Anyone can do Free Verse. Anyone can say anything they've written has meaning; the fact of the matter is, most of what we write doesn't always have a meaning. But for argument's sake, lets suppose it does. You write something in some random pattern, and poof! instant poetry.

I don't think so.

One cannot, and should not, compare Free Verse to Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Milton, Dante, Pope, etc.
If anyone can do it, it's not really worth it. When poetry is stripped of its form, then it becomes easy. This isn't fair for those skilled in this art.

I prompt you to prove to me that Free Verse is actually worthy of being classified as poetry.

[Chromer]

Free Verse is poetry because it is the written form of a range of emotions in a lyrical sense. It is the expression of the person's depth and soul. Obviously, it's easy to tell when something was just barfed onto the page and when something was actually thought out.

[The_Q]

Originally Posted by Sr. Panama

If anyone can do it, it's not really worth it. When poetry is stripped of its form, then it becomes easy.

I believe you mean "when poetry is stripped of its form, then it becomes prose."

Originally Posted by Chromer

Obviously, it's easy to tell when something was just barfed onto the page and when something was actually thought out.

It's because it has form and function, right? There's a reason the idiom is "rhyme and reason."

Q

[mead1]

I guess this questions more the definition of "poetry" itself than the validity of Free Verse. Poetry can be written for any number of reasons, but I like to think that generally it is written by someone for themselves. In this, Free Verse is exactly as valid as any other sort of poetry, because it's created in such a way as you think it can best be interpreted when you next look at it. I believe poetry written with the intent of publication or distribution isn't poetry at all. Whenever I write a poem, which doesn't happen often I'll admit, it has a rather deep personal meaning to it. When looking at anything I've written, I will get more out of it personally than anyone else. This applies to if I wrote something in Free Verse, or if I wrote a brilliantly patterned sonnet. The most important element is what I can gain from it when I look back. If the writer can extract meaning from his or her works, then it really doesn't matter if it's structured or not, it's poetry.

[Chromer]

Originally Posted by The_Q

It's because it has form and function, right? There's a reason the idiom is "rhyme and reason."

Q

Not neccesarily. Just because a poem seems to have no rhyming structure or coherent reason that can be determined by the average person, does not mean that it is not poetry nonetheless.

[The_Q]

Originally Posted by dictionary.com

prose /proʊz/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[prohz] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, adjective, verb, prosed, pros·ing.
–noun
1. the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse.

Originally Posted by dictionary.com

po·et·ry (pō'ĭ-trē) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. The art or work of a poet.
2.
1. Poems regarded as forming a division of literature.
2. The poetic works of a given author, group, nation, or kind.
3. A piece of literature written in meter; verse.

Originally Posted by Chromer

Not neccesarily. Just because a poem seems to have no rhyming structure or coherent reason that can be determined by the average person, does not mean that it is not poetry nonetheless.

Apparently, it does.

Q

[Chromer]

That's a dictionary website's opinion. Who is to say what is poetry and what isn't poetry? Certainly not you or I.

[The_Q]

Originally Posted by Chromer

That's a dictionary website's opinion. Who is to say what is poetry and what isn't poetry? Certainly not you or I.

That's because neither of us belong to the committee that defines it. I'm sure it is defined somewhere.

The point of this being, poetry isn't some all powerful amazing art that it's made out to be. Hell, art isn't some all powerful amazing thing it's made out to be. Who are we to define it? Its creators, its benefactors, its beneficiaries and its patrons.

Q

[sylvia_black]

Roses are red, violets are blue... blah blah blah blah. Zee interwebz... shez essploded from my "poem".

[FictionJunction]

Originally Posted by sylvia_black

Writing poetry is an emotional art. It is not the simple act of making this word rhyme with another. It is not the words of your predecessors forcing you to place your feelings neatly in little confined boxes. A box marked this way; check; another: that way; check; stir and repeat. If this is the truth of poetry, it is the breeding ground for deceitful imagery: mere pretty words of an incomplete process. Circle "yes" or "no."

This is what you feel, or it isn't because an old book told you. This is realty
and so it must be. It's easy to believe it as organized things ARE easier to understand but when you exist in another thought entirely and what you want to say is not so black and white, the meaning of the perfect, perfect thoughts you hoped sincerely to imbue become lies (and) Begin to c r u m b l e (lol needless spaces).

Writing poetry is speaking out with your heart, your mind (and) sometimes against the organization of ideas and thoughts. Your back buffering against the wind; Wind, that spewed from the mouth of 'reason.' Reason, some English teacher - whom you never cared for anyway - taught you in school; A school, organized into little boxes; little boxes, your poetry doesn't seem to fit (in).

It makes you think; It makes you feel, much like a painting might. A brother of pencil strokes speaking the same language of the emotional art.

I dare you to think outside the lines.

That's what I just read. Pretty bad prose.

[The_Q]

Originally Posted by Selinica, no wai- Chrissi, no wai- Sylvia

..It makes you think
It makes you feel
Much like a painting might
A brother of pencil strokes
Speaking the same language of the emotional art

I dare you to think outside the lines

Because production of Free Verse requires so much thought and feeling to produce. The only reason it requires more thought to read is because it's often incoherent (much like what you've managed to produce.) I hope you realize that the purpose of language is to efficiently communicate ideas and feelings with other people. That means to easily and effectively without the desire to move on to something else share ideas.

Honestly, if you want good thought, you should be doing math.

Q

[Risking]

Free verse is prose.

[FictionJunction]

Using terms like 'the wind' or 'tight boxes' or any other attempt at using figurative language doesn't make your 'work' poetry. I could do the same thing and I'm not a poet. Just because it's meaningful to you it doesn't make something you write poetry. Even if it was meaningful to the whole world it wouldn't necessarily be classified as poetry.

Also, my English teacher in High school is someone who I admire.

[FictionJunction]

Originally Posted by Risking

Free Verse is poetry; it needs no certain flow to it. Poetry is a form of expressing one's feelings or opinions, sure majority of all poems rhyme, but this doesn't mean that poetry cannot rhyme. Free verse is just another form of poetry, just one that doesn't cleverly rhyme every other line in a stanza or whatever.

Eh.

Free Verse is prose.

[The_Q]

Originally Posted by Risking

Free verse is just another form of poetry, just one that doesn't cleverly rhyme every other line in a stanza or whatever.

Iambic pentameter.

Q

[sylvia_black]

Originally Posted by FictionJunction

Pretty bad prose.

I wrote it the way I knew you would hate (with all my bleeding heart *teardrop*). :3 Just for you!

I guess that leaves us at a stalemate. Oh well.

[The_Q]

Originally Posted by Sylvia

I guess that leaves us at a stalemate. Oh well.

How does that leave us at a stalemate? We have definitions, logic and common sense and you have poorly written prose that proves us correct.

Q

[bmah]

Originally Posted by The_Q

It's because it has form and function, right?

Not necessarily. Poetry can be well thought out (function), but does not necessarily follow "form" in a strict sense. For example, take E. E. Cumming's "next to of course god america i". When I first saw this poem, it did look "barfed out" to me, but that's because the dialogue is just one long rant. However, this poem is not nonsense:

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

This one is called "in Just-" by the same poet. The poem at first seems to have little meaning:

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's spring
and the goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

This one's called "l(a". The poem does have form; you just have to take a closer look! :

l(a

le
af
fa

ll

s)
one
l

iness

[The_Q]

E.E. Cummings wrote a lot in form (sonnetts, blues). The only reason that doesn't seem like it's in form is because he wrote so that the shape of the words conveyed just as much of a message as the words themselves (see: House of Leaves).

Nevertheless, form refers to meter, not to rhyme or sensibility of the words themselves (which is equally important, in my opinion, but not in poetry's).

Q

[sylvia_black]

Originally Posted by The_Q

How does that leave us at a stalemate? We have definitions, logic and common sense and you have poorly written prose that proves us correct.

Q

A stalemate, meaning I believe one thing and FictionJunction another, and our opinions probably won't change. That is all.

By the way. Just because I'm not good at poetry, doesn't mean that what I wrote it isn't a poem. If I want to call it a poem, I will, and no one else can change my mind on that. Stalemate.