Who is to say what is acceptable? Image via Wikipedia
Freedom of Writing?
It is a strange notion among some educated westerners that poetry is for serious and established writers. Usually, these are people with little imagination and prefer the stagnant view of the English canon, i.e Shakespeare, Yeats and other poets accepted as 'great'. Strangely this kind of snobbishness has only been a recent occurrence (most likely in the last twenty years or so) and while the education systems of most western nations bear some responsibility for the poor standing of poetry it is also a general ignorance to what poetry really is. This is where the writers themselves have tried to put up barricades against anyone joining an elite club of poets (definitely motivated by money due to the small number of poets making a living from writing).
What is Poetry?
Poetry is... poetry. Even though conceptual ideas of poetry as 'anything' have become increasingly accepted most academic institutions and poets themselves continue to deny the growth of modern poetry. I will for the purposes of this article try to limit any full description of what a 'poem' or a 'poet' may be but rather discuss what poetry was and what it could become. Poetry, for all intensive purposes is an organic, condensed form of writing in some instances and in others a rigid, highly structured form of writing.
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~Leonard Cohen
Personally I cannot stand some of the so-called 'classics' using the formulaic styles of the past. Not many of us really want to sit down and read an epic poem (sometimes hundreds of pages long) as times have changed and those who hold onto these outdated forms will be left behind. Poetry is about performance and expression, not preservation as the intelligentsia would prefer.
Who can write poetry?
Poetry is of course a specific use of language, but without language there is no poetry. This means that poetry should be accessible to everyone and in every language a point that is missed by many academics (not all of course). The prevalence of poetry within society is hard to ignore as it features on advertisements, music and even in common uses of language.
We have all had to write poetry at one time or another either for education or for someone we have loved. The true beauty of this poetry is that it does not have to be 'good' poetry to have purpose and meaning. It can be absolutely awful (as admittedly many personal love poems are) but this does not deny their power and meaning.
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. ~Plato, Ion
In concluding this article I must state I am a supporter of accessible arts and believe these basic forms of human expression should never be confined to one group of producers. In saying this I hope you all try and express yourselves to someone you care about in whatever way is most comfortable to you. It doesn't have to be great or memorable as long as it has feeling and meaning for the one you write for.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
