"Good Poetry" Comment

I agree with a lot of what Donya is saying but I also disagree with some of it too. I’ll start with what I agree with. I agree that many times a “Poet” will publish material that is hardly considered stimulating and thoughtful. Like that guy that Matt said retyped liked a year’s worth of New York Times and published it. To me, that is just a year’s worth of New York Times retyped, not anything special. But then again, if it was published, someone must have bought it, or maybe not.
To find whether a piece of work is “poetry worthy” you have to refer to the definition of poetry. According to Princeton, poetry is “any communication resembling poetry in beauty or the evocation of feeling.” This is a pretty broad and general definition. This means that poetry could be any small piece of information that evokes emotion, and it doesn’t specify who the piece evokes emotion for. Something I have realized that I didn’t realize before taking this class is that poetry is mainly for the author’s satisfaction. Like music, when I am completely content with a song I have created, it doesn’t truly matter what everyone else thinks. I think, to many authors, the same is true. Unfortunately, when supporting yourself solely from works you have created you have to take the consumer into account, if they don’t like it then you don’t eat.
I disagreed that True/False was thoughtless and emotionless. To me, when I read any works of poetry I may not necessarily “get” the big picture but what I might “get” is a slight emotion from a phrase or even a word that I have read. I may find one phrase or word that reminds me of a childhood memory, or feeling I once had. This is what poetry is all about. I refer to the movie “Barfly” as a demonstration of my point. Barfly (if you haven’t seen it) is about a routine bar drunk that is also a part time genius poet. (Not to say this is a true story but it could be.) How can a man who so easily dismisses formal poetry education write so well? I don’t think you have to know about great works of Shakespeare, or Poe to be a great writer. Some people are just born with the ease of words and the ability to communicate emotion to the audience. In conclusion, most poetry is not for everyone, but that’s why there is a lot of it, you have a lot to choose from.

-Jay Woodward

Check out my music and other pirate ships and unicorns at www.jaywoodward.com