Musings on Poetry
Language is a bunch of words
walking around in their birthday suit.
Poetry dresses them up with costume, make up,
color and the appropriate accessories for the
occasion which they attend.
Language is a bunch of words, better at making noise
than actually saying anything.
Poetry subtracts the words responsible for all the noise.
Language is a bunch of words looking to impress a paragraph. Poetry is the paragraph, impressed into a word.
Language is a word trying to explain a feeling. Poetry is a feeling revealed within the word
Language is a bunch of words trying to illuminate a picture. Poetry is the picture illuminating the words.
Language is a bunch of words looking for a house to live in. Poetry is a home looking for a word, worthy of residence.
Language is a bunch of words trying to dance to music that isn't playing. Poetry is the music that teaches the words to dance.
Language is a bunch of words used to make conversation between consenting faces. Poetry is the silent conversation spoken to the heart.
Language is a bunch of words from a squawking parrot wanting to be heard. Poetry is a butterfly wanting to be held.
In the end, poetry is never really defined. It is a dance between the writer and the reader. The music plays and in the hearing the dance begins and poetry is born. Sometimes, there is nothing makes you feel so alive than to hold a butterfly and know, that when it leaves, something of it, forever stays. So it is with poetry.
Although "Webster" may define poetry in more sterile terms, I prefer the terms I've come to know in hub pages. They are gleaned from a harvest of gifted poets, who share their work here. My frequent reading of their work has led to my unusual musings regarding poetry. If your curiosity inclines you to examples of my musings, you may read from,
Nellieanna H hay
Genna East
Audrey Howitt
phdast7
Comments
Reading this hub again, this March 31, 2015, is like a sip of joyousness!
Thank you again for being you and for writing with such depth, Alan.
I'll send you that info in an email about obtaining the book, Alan.
Your Thanksgiving plans sound delightful! Hope you'll take lots of pix and share some with us!!
Ah yes. I amazed myself by breezing through the undone parts of the taxes fairly soon Sunday and getting it printed, enveloped, labeled and ready to send this morning so it's done for this time and with so little hassle. It almost seems like something was surely missed! But according to the Turbo Tax error check, it was all free of errors - and I'll get back a nice little refund!
Your trip with Zoe and Alison through such a lovely place with waterfalls and all sounds heavenly. What good news that Alison & Jeffrey can go ahead with finding and buying a new home in Bend, with their old one sold now! I've no doubt both families will enjoy the stretching room of single-family living again!
There are more nips in the air here, though no leaves are turning or anything. But we're getting rather regular 'cold fronts' which turn the days (and especially the nights) from bermudas & tank tops weather even as far as to sweats at times. I'm constantly opening and closing the windows to keep the house comfortable. Have only needed A/C once for a few hours and a little furnace heat to chase the chill one time in all the month so far. Ah! October!
I remember first-hand how much winter preparation is required in the "frozen North" as my mother called her birthplace in Indiana! Here, it's mostly just a matter of protecting outside faucets and taking in watering hoses. We do get freezes, snow and ice, of course. Just fewer, later on, and surely less severe. Of course, if you were to get to visit your son, it had to happen before the route became impassible! Glad you got to do that. I hope you'll soon be able to settle in and write, too! I miss finding your latest publications when they're so much less frequent.
Your comments to my interview were truly delightful and heart-warming, dear Alan. I treasure your words. And your impeccable sense of what's right always makes your comments perfectly appropriate, gracious and courteous.
Maria's treatment of me in the interview was so lovely, too, as it is for each of her interviewees. She is simply a dear person, with the most wonderful aura of kindness about whatever she does. She's published a little children's book, you know; - - a real bound book! She'd told me she wanted me to have the copy she would have given her Mom if she were alive; - and today I got it! I'm simply overwhelmed! It's just beautiful. The honor is special and the little book is such a treat. Our Michael Friedman (mckbirdbks) illustrated it with precious drawings, and his Mockingbird Books published it. The title is "Kylie's Blossoms". The little girl, Kylie, explores as she walks through nearby forest throughout the year with her Teddy bear, meeting 12 new floral friends, and writing a descriptive poem for each of them. There's even a butterfly in August's illustration when Kylie and Teddy meet Dahlia! :-) - - And so on, with one new flora friend for each of the months. It is utterly charming. What a lovely Christmas present it would be for a little girl! The last 'blossom' met is Holly!
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Dear Alan - I just noticed your message that you'd read Genna and Mary's interviews and I read your comments on them. Of course, I saw your gracious comments on mine. All are much appreciated.
I'm so enjoying all these interviews. I'm getting better acquainted with those I already knew & so many lovely writers I'm just now discovering. As you said in one of your comments, the comments themselves reflect each person's character and personality, too!
What a lovely thing Maria is doing to introduce and features people in this way!
What a wonderful hub I was told to read this and I am so glad I have .. Poetry is a song, poetry is life, poetry is love, and this hub is amazing thank you for writing this
I am sharing
Debbie
"poetry subtracts the words from all the noise" - this is a magnificent way of defying poetry. It may also explain why so few people can actually appreciate a subtle world of beauty
HAHAHAHAHA! Yup - that's about the size of it around little kids. Love'em - but glad they have full-time PARENTS! BTDT! Whew. It's kinda hard to believe we did it ourselves when we didn't realize how strenuous it was! I truly admire young parents for their stamina and their steadfastness.
Laughed heartily and your looking forward to work in order to get a rest!
Hello, Alan! :-) - Two messages in one day! Wow.
I just looked at my list of the scheduled interviews and find I'm already behind by 2! Gives me insight to the challenge our Journey series must have presented for the readers who wanted to keep up. Sunnie Day's interview was Friday and today is BlueStar's. So I'll be hustling over to read them shortly.
I can empathize with what-all you have to do to be ready to go to Bannf, and the challenge of a full-time job taking care of Zoe. It's almost like the Grandparent Trap! I would love to live close to mine, but then -- all that responsibility! I'm no longer child-proof! haha. I'd break easily! Had visitors recently with two little girls, though and they were delightful. It was a working visit (their dad & his friend. who are also my ranch saviors, were removing my dilapidated hottub and hauling it off). The girls brought their own little DVDs to watch and treated me to a running plot-line synopsis of the animated stories whenever I wasn't otherwise occupied with what was going on.
But don't be too 'easy'! Make is a little easy on yourself. 'No' won't bite. But you've your lovely vacation coming up and then will probably follow a less strenuous domestic schedule, hopefully.
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That sounds like a great interview project! Alan, it is nice to know you are busy. We are missing you around the pages.
Hello, Alan ~
It's great to see your brief appearances during your hiatus. :-)
I like Genna's work, too!
May I recommend your checking out the interview of Genna just published by Marcoujor, the third in a series of 30 interviews of HP women. The first 2 were Martie Coetser & Happyboomernurse (Gail Sobotkin) and the latest is Tillsontitan (Mary Craig) - I'm about to go read it now!
I'm honored to have been asked to participate among these outstanding writers, in one of the upcoming interviews in the series (Oct. 10).
This project follows Maria's excellent series of interviews of several HP guys. It's an ambitious undertaking and she's doing a great service, introducing some Hubbers to a wider audience.
Came back for another read---This is a wonderful way of looking at poetry--it does seem to me to be some quality in the writing that both subtracts and adds--Thank you for the plug! And since I don't know Genna East's work, I'm headed over there now---
Wow, my second read... I think I'm a fan already. I'm going to throw this clumsy word out which you have undoubtedly heard before; brilliant. You present and give more to the reader than is common, and yet in receiving more than I might have expected I am only made more hungry...
Poetry defies definition and oftimes interpretation but your words have picked up the gauntlet.
arb,
Refreshing Musing on Poetry. I keep meeting all these talented people, and now I want to read more of your work.
Thank you,
Your Hub Friend,
Bobbi Purvis
So apt are your words which describe poetic verse
In a style poetic itself they talk and converse
In a way you bring an ode to poets and poems
Through thy words you bring out gems
Fabulous poetry.... The Musings on poetry mark high priority 'cause they satisfy the muses of souls as such who are visible on this page...
Great poem... great poet... great commentors... (not me :))...
Fantastic
To hear poetry described this way lit me up with a newfound sense of urgency and inspiration to get pen to paper (or fingers to keys) and I thank you so very much for that. Your words offer an education in poetry and I'm grateful to have you for a teacher!
I still have a lot to learn as up to this point for me, poetry has simply been about releasing the endless chatter in my brain and emotions from my soul. I'm still trying to find which style I appreciate the most or where my way of writing fits. I'm unsure if I prefer a rhyming poem to one that does not. I know I'll learn a lot on HubPages through poets like you and surely find my way.
Alan - My mother loved language and literature, so I learned from her and we played daily with words and phrases and their many shades of meaning. I love good prose, I try to write good prose.
And I love "really great poetry, not so fond of "merely good" poetry. (Which I supposed to many people would sound arrogant and elitist, but there it is.) Before reading your poem, I don't think I ever realized so clearly that great poetry "subtracts" the unnecessary, distracting, and noise-making words from "language."
"In the end, poetry is never really defined. It is a dance between the writer and the reader. The music plays and in the hearing the dance begins and poetry is born." I shall read these two sentences of yours again and again.
Thank you for including me on your list (Audrey's work I know and appreciate greatly), I almost feel embarrassed, but not quite, because I have written so few poems. But I can live with the feeling. :) Theresa
Wow, talk about painting a picture in words, great job!
Voted up and all! WP
What a great way to get at what poetry can represent! Beautifully written! Up & all but funny!
I too follow Audrey and Nellieanna and will certainly read Genna East on your recommendation.
Every metaphor is a complete beat of the heart and impulse of the mind. But these grab me most and won't let go:
"Language is a bunch of words trying to illuminate a picture. Poetry is the picture illuminating the words."
"Poetry is the residue of life that refused to attend its own funeral and instead, chose to ink a pen and live again."
"Words are the squawking parrot wanting to be heard. Poetry is the butterfly wanting to be held."
Incredibly beautiful and powerfully expressive. Indeed, something of it stays. . . .always. I'm honored to be among your poets.
Nicely done. Poetry sometime defies interpretation.
"Words are the squawking parrot wanting to be heard. Poetry is the butterfly wanting to be held.".
One word to describe your poetry- WOW..
Language is a bunch of words trying to dance to music they can not hear. Poetry is the dance and it writes the music that teaches us to hear.
This stanza speaks to me--maybe even sings to me--excellent descriptions and contrasts here--and thank you so much for the mention. I am honored!
What a beautifully artistic way of describing Musings on poetry, a virtual array of colorful words displayed on an artist's palette. I love how you laid them all out here with this wonderful bouquet. The aroma has drifted into my soul and BTW you are following 3 of my favorite poets here at the hubs including yourself. Well done, bravo now back to work, my Muse is calling me.
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