Clever. That's a definition that's almost meaningless, but not quite.
You define "poetic" but not "poetry"; I would venture to say that the
two may not be the same.
Also, poetry is text. That's one of it's referential boundaries,
whether it's visual or not. That might mark me as a conservative
fuddy-duddy. I wonder if Cris Cheek is listening/?
I don't agree that individual experience is a boundary condtion; far
from it, quite a lot of poetry does not agree to the personal or to
the individual experience. Flarf for example. Most of the
Cage-related oeuvre. So, so "we" don't consider it at all. So far,
your definition pretty much fails... so back to the elasticity.
my definition: poetry is text where white-space is a consideration.
Roger
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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