Poetics
Poetics
Someone helped form an answer to a question I had for a long time yesterday. He was both articulate and interesting, so here’s what I may have resolved. The question is: ‘Why poetry?’ as in ‘why poetry to express ideas, versus other forms like essay, narrative, etc.?’ Basicly, it gets to the question on the role of art. The answer I like revolves around two ideas: grammar and audience.
Poetry’s relationship to grammar gives it emotional and expressive power. Grammatical constructions of more formal discourses constrain ideas by constraining writing to particular forms and structures. Free association that sometimes better reflects development of thought gets short changed under formal or linear standards of writing. So, freedom from formal grammar allows space for direct development of emotions as much as theoretical constructs or abstract description. It provides a direct way of conveying emotion that doesn’t rely solely on description, metaphor, etc. Alternately, poetry develops its own grammar, in rhyme structure, etc. to develop clarity of expression better suited to the form. Either way, the forms of grammar applied to poetry aren’t imposed by ‘external’ demands/standards.
The second facet concerns the audience. Poetry as a form gains meaning by the emotions it conveys and the impact on the reader, as much as it does in the mind of the author. Attention to pauses, timing and layout stems from concern for how the reader/audience receives as work. Intent of the author is tied to the reception of the audience, developing new forms of expression and demands of interpersonal dialogue. The subset of this question concerns sound. Poetry has a determinate relationship to sound that other forms of expression don’t. As performance or art, the poet gives time and effort to developing a mature sense of sound. Sound gives the work a more material link to the human body and the physical world, achieving a certain depth of connection that cannot be found in purely cerebral or abstract modes.
These things are limitations in some instances. As deeply interpersonal art, poetry is strained to express more complex political demands that extend beyond an immediate author/reader context. Many political questions involve questions of societal practice that adapt poorly to a form that demands primarily personal investment. It parallels photography in being constrained from articulating logos or complex rational argument, even while being a supplement that binds argument in a material foundation.
On that note, I have been writing silly poems.
Duncan
Someone helped form an answer to a question I had for a long time yesterday. He was both articulate and interesting, so here’s what I may have resolved. The question is: ‘Why poetry?’ as in ‘why poetry to express ideas, versus other forms like essay, narrative, etc.?’ Basicly, it gets to the question on the role of art. The answer I like revolves around two ideas: grammar and audience.
Poetry’s relationship to grammar gives it emotional and expressive power. Grammatical constructions of more formal discourses constrain ideas by constraining writing to particular forms and structures. Free association that sometimes better reflects development of thought gets short changed under formal or linear standards of writing. So, freedom from formal grammar allows space for direct development of emotions as much as theoretical constructs or abstract description. It provides a direct way of conveying emotion that doesn’t rely solely on description, metaphor, etc. Alternately, poetry develops its own grammar, in rhyme structure, etc. to develop clarity of expression better suited to the form. Either way, the forms of grammar applied to poetry aren’t imposed by ‘external’ demands/standards.
The second facet concerns the audience. Poetry as a form gains meaning by the emotions it conveys and the impact on the reader, as much as it does in the mind of the author. Attention to pauses, timing and layout stems from concern for how the reader/audience receives as work. Intent of the author is tied to the reception of the audience, developing new forms of expression and demands of interpersonal dialogue. The subset of this question concerns sound. Poetry has a determinate relationship to sound that other forms of expression don’t. As performance or art, the poet gives time and effort to developing a mature sense of sound. Sound gives the work a more material link to the human body and the physical world, achieving a certain depth of connection that cannot be found in purely cerebral or abstract modes.
These things are limitations in some instances. As deeply interpersonal art, poetry is strained to express more complex political demands that extend beyond an immediate author/reader context. Many political questions involve questions of societal practice that adapt poorly to a form that demands primarily personal investment. It parallels photography in being constrained from articulating logos or complex rational argument, even while being a supplement that binds argument in a material foundation.
On that note, I have been writing silly poems.
Duncan
posted by Duncan at 12:24 PM
1 Comments:
silly poems? won't you share some with us?
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