I'm discovering poetry

Thanks papagaio, but I don't like that image at all.
I suppose it is the word'just'

If life is a fire, what is being devoured, time?

oldstick.

What is being devoured is you.

That's what life does

Poetry is a very special language which allows us to say things that can't be said in the language of our normal discourse.

This is important for young poets to realize, and is widely ignored. Rants and prose with lines that don't make it to the right margin are not poetry.

Poetry is a special language which can say things that can't be said with our normal use of words.

#5 --

". . . prose with lines that don't make it to the right margin are not poetry."

Who sez?

Any logical interpretation of the sentence

Message 4 looks like a poem to me!

oldstick.

does looking like a poem make it a poem?
does sounding like one?
tasting?
why?

What is the difference betwen a poem and a verse?
I'm editing a book of poems, all with rhymes and am tempted to call them a collection (or cornucopia) of verses.
oldstick.

Why was the OP deleted? I'm intrigued at what the following posts are responding to - 'what is poetry', perhaps?

#5 onwards - I admit to some antipathy to some modern poetry that doesn't seem (to me, at least) to have any structure (other than the visual one on the page). Looking at that sort of stuff, I often wonder if this is or isn't a poem:



It seems very similar in it's (lack of) structure and rhythm to a lot of stuff I've read.

Is this a poem?

Which of the fairest three today will ride with me? My steeds are all pawing at the threshold of the morn. Which of the fairest three today will ride with me across the gold autumn's whole kingdom of corn?

Which of the fairest three
today will ride with me?
My steeds are all pawing
at the threshold of the morn.
Which of the fairest three
today will ride with me
across the gold autumn's
whole kingdom of corn?

yes

If # 12 is a poem only if it as re-lineated as #13, then # 11 would be a poem, wouldn't it?

no

and nothing to suggest #12 is "only" a poem if re-lined

I'm reminded of the whole concept of "found poetry". taking prose passages and making changes in lineation or spacing or punctuation to come up with something that looks and feels like a poem. Well known examples:

from a public health text Rats and How to Destroy Them (London, 1924):

Observation

It is a
waste of time
and money
to pour tar
down rat-holes.

From a passage in William Whewell's "An Elementary Treatise on Mechanics":

Hence no force, however great,
can stretch a cord, however fine,
into a horizontal line
which is accurately straight.

Or, from Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

#16. I really like the W.W. piece, probably because of 'fine' and 'line.' How about calling it poetic prose?
I'm sure there are loads of examples of that.

I love the Rumsfeld quotation. Do you have the equivalent of a Poet Laureate in the U.S.A?

> 18. I think there may be something in the US Constitution prohibiting a person from being both Secretary of Defense and Poet Laureate.

It's a pity if this is the case. Here's another example of Rumsfeld's art -- from a Dec 9, 2002 press conference, en route to Eritrea.

In the Red Sea

The Red Sea begins and ends.
And then there's an area
Just Beyond the Red Sea,
And it may very well be
That people chose to do it
Before they get in the Red Sea
Or after they're in there-
Possibly, probably, certainly.