Below is Jennifer Brown’s response to Mason’s question: “What is poetry? How do we know if a poem is a poem?” (All bold, italics and links are hers.)
Thank you Jennifer for your generosity of heart and spirit that truly transformed a man. He no longer sees himself the same way. It’s amazing what a seemingly “short” gesture can do to transform the human spirit.
What is poetry? Why do people keep asking?
Because it’s a good question and the answer keeps changing. And it’s a question that poets ask, all the time, not just “regular people” (whatever that means).
Here’s a curious poem that’s actually titled, “Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry,” which I like very much, but doesn’t really answer the question your Donovan guys are asking.
Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.
There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.
This poem “looks like” a poem to us (readers of English) because it’s got line breaks, it’s got white space around it on the page, and even if you removed the line breaks, and turned it into a paragraph, it has what I call ‘sound strategies’ – rhyme (tell and fell), assonance (the “a” sound in aslant and random), and alliteration (the “f” in feeding and freezing – which is also an example of assonance, the “ee” sounds). (Look up those terms on AAP’s glossary page, or the much larger glossary put together by the Poetry Foundation.)
Here's what it looks like as a “paragraph”
Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle, that while you watched turned to pieces of snow, riding a gradient invisible from silver aslant to random, white, and slow. There came a moment that you couldn’t tell. And then they clearly flew instead of fell.
A prose poem, which is a type of poem (not a type of prose), might have other “poetic traits” or strategies. Here’s what the Poetry Foundation says (including links to a couple of examples).
A prose composition that, while not broken into verse lines, demonstrates other traits such as symbols, metaphors, and other figures of speech common to poetry. See Amy Lowell’s “Bath,” “Metals Metals” by Russell Edson, “Information” by David Ignatow, and Harryette Mullen’s “[Kills bugs dead.]”
So maybe breaking something into lines makes it a poem? That’s a very common strategy and something people can easily see. But if you say a poem out loud, can you tell where the lines break? Is that a good rule?
Amy Lowell’s looks a lot like prose (it’s even broken down into paragraphs) but since she called it a prose poem (or maybe just a poem), I believe her. Even if you change the paragraph width on the page, you get the same feeling (emotional and sensual/physical – those sound strategies), I think. If you read it out loud, you don’t get as much help from the poet (because there are no line breaks/much less white space around the poem) but you can hear all kinds of things; rhyme (again) but also the repeated “L” sounds, the repeated “ir or er” sounds. That’s done deliberately and that’s part of what makes a poem a poem.
By Amy Lowell
The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots. The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.
When I get asked this question when I’m teaching, I invite my students to think about other types of art they are familiar with. A dance is built with a body; you move your arms, your head, your feet. Anyone can dance, but not everyone has studied the waltz or practiced breakdancing moves. You get dance competitions with deliberate choreography and people dance in a particular style (tango, rhumba, salsa). A painting is built with paper and paint (oil or watercolor) or maybe with other materials. Anyone can paint, but not everyone studies the craft of painting, or knows the difference between chiaroscuro or atmospheric perspective (certainly not me).
People get confused with poetry, because a poem is built with words, whether it’s written or spoken orally. And we feel an “ownership” of words and language that we don’t generally feel for oil paints or musical instruments. Words belong to each of us with a kind of funny democracy, language is intimate and personal to each of us, yet completely universal and public (unless you are code switching). And, of course, anyone can write a poem, even if you’ve not studied poetry or understand the difference between a quatrain or personification.
Another point of confusion happens because all types of written “art” (literature, comic books, movie scripts) and even non-art writing (emails, text messages and personal letters) use the same types of “techniques” or tricks as poetry. Novelists use metaphors (love is a nightmare) and similes (my lover smells like a dream). Text messages are full of connotation (the implied or suggested meaning connected with a word - that's essentially what emojis are). In fact, over and over when we speak and write we use all these tricks. You don’t have to know the formal term for synecdoche to understand that “all hands on deck” really means all the people on deck, or everyone on the team, or all people working together.
Ultimately, each reader of (or listener to) “a work made up of words” decides for himself or herself if something is a poem. I’m a teacher of poetry, and a poet, so I like to believe people when they say they’ve written a poem. I want to be generous. However, that doesn’t mean I have to like it or even agree with them that what they’ve written is a good poem.
The last thing I’ll say is this. A bunch of words on a page that express the feelings of the writer or document her observations of the world are more likely to be received as a poem (rather than prose) if the writer has tried to make a poem. If the writer wants to make her poem better, or more recognizable as a poem to a wider audience, that takes work and practice. That’s the craft of poetry. Just like learning the dance steps to the tango is different than jumping up and down in a mosh pit at a concert. What’s the difference between (illegal) graffiti and street art? Is it in the intention of the artist or the way the “work” is received by viewers?
Keep asking the questions. Art is (in my view) an essential human activity. Keep being human. Write if you want to, read poetry if you want to learn more about its history as an art form, or what is meant by poetic craft; look online and figure out what people are talking about. Don’t be afraid. And if you are brave enough to share your work, don’t worry about what other people think you’re doing. Very few people write poetry that rhymes these days, although many do, especially in the "newer" forms like spoken word. What about song lyrics? Everyone who writes a poem sets out to write poetry, regardless of whether they take the next step of calling themselves poets. Have fun!
Thank you Jennifer!
