I am sure you all know this page on the Poets' Corner, still I am sending it
over:
http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=287
boringly yours,
On 8/25/07, TheOldMole <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Variously attributed to Emily Dickinson, E. A. Robinson, and probably a
> bunch of other people -- it's poetry if it makes the hair on the back of
> your neck stand up. And if poetry hat unfolds in a conversational style
> can do that, then it passes the test.
>
> But this is still my favorite definition from Italo Calvino, because it
> so successfully answers the two questions -- What is Art? and What is
> Good Art?
>
> Both in art and in literature, the function of the frame is fundamental.
> It is the frame that marks the boundary between the picture and what is
> outside. It allows the picture to exist, isolating it from the rest; but
> at the same time, it recalls--and somehow stands for--everything that
> remains out of the picture. I might venture a definition: we consider
> poetic a production in which each individual experience acquires
> prominence through its detachment from the general continuum, while it
> retains a kind of glint of that unlimited vastness.
>
> Joanna Boulter wrote:
> > Often, when people ask "What is poetry?" they mean "How can I tell
> > whether what I'm writing qualifies?" It's back to Lynda's point about
> > conversational poems -- they don't seem serious enough, and surely if
> > it's that easy anyone can do it. And then of course there's the
> > "That's not poetry, it's chopped-up prose" stance. It's akin to the
> > modern art controversy -- "My 3-year-old can do as well as that!"
> >
> > I have to admit, there are times when I could use an easily-grasped
> > definition, purely in self-defence.
> >
> > joanna
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Corelis"
> > <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 6:10 PM
> > Subject: Poetry? What's that?
> >
> >
> >> "What is poetry?"
> >>
> >> To me, the question is not nearly so interesting as the fact that it's
> >> asked and that no one's surprised that it's asked.
> >>
> >> "What is music?" The question would only occur to a few cloistered
> >> aestheticians. It would never occur to most people, even most
> >> musicians and composers, to spend much time worrying about it. And if
> >> anyone does ask it, it usually doesn't really mean "What is music?"
> >> -- that is, what is its concrete definition, how does it differ from
> >> speech or noise -- but is shorthand for more general questions like
> >> "What does music mean? What is its role in life? What are the
> >> reasons it affects us?" Whereas the question "What is poetry?" is
> >> almost always a way of asking for the concrete definition -- "Exactly
> >> how is poetry different from things that aren't poetry?" "What are the
> >> criteria by which we call one thing poetry and something else not
> >> poetry?" -- which must precede those more general questions. In other
> >> words, "everyone knows" what music is, but nobody knows what poetry
> >> is.
> >>
> >> "What is cinema?" The question is famous, but only among a small
> >> coterie of theorists. The average movie goer would find it quite
> >> irrelevant, if not absurd, to try to define what a movie is.
> >>
> >> "What is art?" A question made much of in the art world, I suspect
> >> mostly because public attempts by artists to raise it are an effective
> >> way of getting media attention.
> >>
> >> "What is the significance that the question 'What is poetry?" is so
> >> often asked and never really answered?"
> >> --
> >> ===================================
> >>
> >> Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
> >>
> >> ===================================
> >>
> >
>
> --
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
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