What is Poetry? -- Some notes and definitions

This is the question I've asked students to answer for their last paper of the course.

Students--I'd like you to craft your own definition based on your experience with modern and contemporary poetry this semester, but there's no harm in looking at definitions by others.

My hint here is that your definition should have something to say about the ways in which poetry uses language, the way in which it might be differentiated from other kinds of language usage, and the responses it seeks to kindle in its readers. So your definition of what poetry IS should have something to do with what poetry DOES.

I've asked you to reference two contemporary essays by poets that attempt to define what the best of contemporary poetry is and does--one by Yusef Komunyakaa and one by Lyn Hejinian. (See Moodle.) These essays will give you an idea about how a professional poet might respond to this question and a context (the introduction to an anthology of 75 of the Best American Poems published the previous year) in which they might create such a definition.

It might be helpful for you to create your own mini-anthology of poems read this semester--10 poems that illustrate, support, or challenge your definition of poetry. Refer to examples from some of these poems in your paper.

While I'm most interested in what YOU think poetry is, here are some definitions by others you may want to consider as you come up with your own.


What is Poetry? on poetry.org

What is Poetry - a poem by John Ashberry

Here are lots of famous quotes out of context on The Poetry Garden site.

Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings;" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;" and Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."

Notice how the above quotes all have something to do with getting the "unarticulated experience" of life into language--whether it's emotion, sensation, or something else--and with the effect that poems have on the reader, as in Dickinson's test of heat or cold.

If you really like someone else's definition, feel free to reference it when you are stating your own definition, which should be distinctly yours. You can agree or disagree with Komunyakaa, or partly agree with both. Then the rest of the paper should support and illustrate your definition of poetry--with poetry!

Have fun!