Assignment Week #2: Previous Student Responses

What Is Poetry?

Student X:

One of my fondest memories was listening to my grandmother who was in her eighties reciting The Face on the Bar Room Floor from memory, as though she was a girl in school completing an assignment. She strongly spoke the powerful words without hesitation, even though within a few short years, she could not remember the names of her children. Poetry can reach deep within and leave imprints upon our souls, but to define it is almost impossible.
For centuries, mankind has tried to define poetry, but it is a task somewhat like the proverbial story of the blind men and the elephant wherein each man thought an elephant was something different based on the part of the animal he touched. One blind man felt the trunk, and thought the elephant must be like a rope while the second felt a leg and decided an elephant must be very much like a tree.
By the same token, each person perceives poetry according to his own perceptions and feelings. One person believes that poetry is simply an arrangement of words, whether pleasing or unsatisfactory; hence, the carillon of the words is all-important. Poetry may have simple language and appeal to those who find expression in words impossible, but understand the intrinsic meaning without knowledge of rhyme or voice.
A second may define poetry according to how well it tells a story and prefer to read the ballads such as The Highwayman, or Evangeline. This limited vision sees the stories in poetry as the only true poetry. If they read it aloud, it comes alive as the resonance creates a mood that brings the story to life. Some take joy in alliteration or the repetition that often adds to the excitement of poetry, while others think poetry is simply for highbrows and has nothing to do with their lives.
In my own love of poetry, I usually prefer poetry with set verse and following standard patterns, rather than the freeform verse so often referred to as "poetry." Yet I bought Rod McKuen's volumes of poetry because he touched my soul and expressed the loneliness and isolation I felt during some of the dark times in my life. This inconsistency is one of the factors that makes poetry almost impossible to define; however, the ultimate purpose of poetry is not to have definition, but to reach within the psyche of humanity and create symmetry from deepest emotion and transforming it to the whole of our being.

Student Y:

Well, in thinking about it, I took the easy way out and wrote one.
***
alive
beating, throbbing
raisin in the sun
dreaming the moment

Carpe nihil
Questions.
Answers?
Seize the dream

Eyes of rose
Dreams of hope
hope of a life
Live! but have we?

What is a poem?
Who are you?
***

Student Z:

After studying this question about what poetry is, I am still not able to give you a total all encompassing definition of what exactly poetry is. I have decided, however, that poetry is a style or method of writing that conveys to the reader the feelings and emotions of the
poet. Poetry is also the ability to place a lot of material and substance into a short written format that is pleasing to the reader, or at least lets the reader know that some important feelings and emotions are being represented by the writer. Although the reader does not have
to like every poem he or she reads, a true poem is a piece of writing that is easily recognizable as a poem by the reader.

Student P:

Poetry is a forum for strong, vivid messages in a fairly small space. Through choice of words a poet can leave us with an image or a feeling; a point of view we have never considered; or a different connection to our mundane world.

Student Q:

Poetry communicates to the reader and the listener, but can also be confusing to those who lack the vocabulary of poetry. Sometimes it holds hidden messages that are happy, colorful, sad, or bold. I did not know there were so many elements to poetry or that paraphrasing plays a great deal with the meaning of a lot of poetry. Many times it has no message at all, but the true meaning lies with the poet. But then, sometimes the poet’s meaning changes over time. Poetry can reach any age, children to adults; it excites them and allows for imagination and creativity but still may confuse them. From my own experience, poetry carries a lot of meaning, but Shakespeare and Robert Browning scare me. I am not familiar with the words or meaning—even if I read it a million times over. I am not bright in the area of some of the famous poets.

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