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WHAT IS POETRY AND HOW
DOES IT DIFFER FROM OTHER ART FORMS ?
Deane P. Goodwin
-- I believe that poetry carries with it
one unique aspect that separates it from all other art forms. This difference is simply
that poetry does not have its own private medium. By this I mean that painters,
photographers, sculptors, and most other artists, have tools and equipment specifically
designed to allow them to perform their functions. These items have little mundane use to
the rest of the world, and in general remain for the sole use of their respective artists.
Poetry, on the other hand, uses words as the medium of its art, a tool used daily by all
others. This is both the great strength and the great weakness of Poetry as an art form.
In its strength, it makes the conveying of emotion and information to our audience simple
as we have common frames of reference to the medium. The weakness is that we must order
our words in a unique manner to create the desired response, being mindful of both the
references to which the words refer, as well as the manner in which they are used, to
convey a new perspective on an emotional event. To the extent that we do this with style
and truly unique "metaphor", that is the extent to which we can call ourselves
poets. For we are, indeed, involved in the creation of new metaphors, by assigning a
combination of images as a representation of the event we wish to discuss. To say the
sunset is pretty is, while accurate and descriptive, neither a metaphor or emotionally
evocative. To say, on the other hand, that the "Light, downfalling, washes through
the heart of the land.", creates both an emotional statement and creates a view of
that sunset which renders it both the same as, and different from, all other sunsets. By
using the one to represent the all, we have, by definition, created metaphor. Throughout
the entire process, care must be taken to consider not only the writer's intent, but the
ability of the reader to apply his own information and context to the poem being
interpreted, to arrive at the understanding expected by the poet. It is the poet's
responsibility to create a meaning that is available to the reader, and it is the reader's
responsibility to cooperate with the written or spoken word to comprehend the intent. The
two together, poet and reader, give birth to the meaning of the poem.
Thoughts of an older, traditional masquerade ball gave rise to the idea of the waltz, and
the "Key Theme" had been created. Now we had only to let the dance begin and see
where the music stopped.
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