Is a poem what you can't say in other words?

Peter

Peter:

I don't think so at all. Many poems have Biblical origins (Milton, for example);yet, many treasure the King James version of the Bible for its stunningly beautiful prose.

JoeT

Peter---I think as you've pointed out to me here
a few times, a poem is many things to many people,
so how can there be an exact definition?

I guess there is one in dictionaries
but that's the best certain men can do at expressing a lot of things
that can't be pinned down. I guess that's why we have words like
"things."

Happy New Year!!

Lisa

I like your response, Joe, a whole lot, because it raises the question of translation, since the poetry in the Bible (as well as the rest of the text) is the most translated work of all time. Someone said that poetry was the thing that is lost in translation. Every good translator admits that to him/her-self. But someone else said that that poetry in unvidersal in the sense that if a poem is good it can be brought into a new language by a good translator. Sounds like a contradiction, but I doubt think so.

I asked my question originally because I do not know the answer to it. I am not even sure it has an answer at all, but I think lots of people would have an understanding of the problem of paraphrasing a poem and so can have an informed opinion about the question of saying what it a poem means "in other words."

Thanks for responding,

Peter

Doesn't poetry pin down the richness and ambiguity of expreience?

"A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose."

Samuel McChord Crothers

Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

Poetry: the best words in the best order.

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. ~Carl Sandburg, Poetry Considered

Poetry is life distilled. ~Gwendolyn Brooks

and my favorite:

Poetry is nobody's business except the poet's, and everybody else can f*** off. ~Philip Larkin

A poet's poem is all his own
Her words upon the sheet,
A garment for the lives they've sewn
If e'er the two shall meet.

With color in the needle's eye
Parade the rainbow clothes,
But when the black and white stroll by,
The poet only...knows.

A poet's poem is his alone
As naked born, she'll die.
His black on white will ne'er be known
Nor pass the needle's eye.

I like it, Marty.

Peter

Thank you, Peter.

Is a poem what you can't say in other words?

No, I don't think so. Paraphrasing a poem, is not necessarily poetry, though it can be. And, conversely, a verse which paraphrases a prose statement is not necessarily poetry either.

Marty, brings an interesting angle to the question. Poetry comes from the poet's mind, heart, and soul. So, each one of us brings life to a poem by pouring our existence into it. There is a bit of our essence in every poem. Perhaps that is the part that can't be translated.


Les



Post Edited (01-02-05 00:32)

I. A. Richards said that paraphrase was a heresy.

>I. A. Richards said that paraphrase was a heresy.

I don't think it's heresy, but it's not as creative as taking an original topic and writing a poem about it.

Les

Les,
In nursing we say, no question is a dumb question. I'm not convinced this is the case with literature, but here goes:

Paraphrasing. Is this when someone takes a poem that is written by someone else ; and rewrites it in different words? If so, then unversed people, such as myself, would not know and assume it is an original piece of work. I can see then, why it might be called heresy as, without citing the original, it is like "copying" or "stealing".

I have seen some poems here, that in discussion that follows, an author might cite one particular line that was taken from another's poem. I have assumed that the other poem lead the author down an entirely different track, but for the one particular line. Is this paraphrasing?

In any event, I thought Peter's question was addressing some people's inability to come right out and say what is in their mind, heart, and soul...because of an inhibition of some sort...fear, shyness, intimidation, pride, lack of confidence....etc. I suppose for some people, poetry is a way to express things they "can't" say. But certainly for others, it is a way to tell a story (be it fiction or nonfiction), tell a joke, give a riddle, write a song in accapella, sketch or paint a picture, or otherwise create.

For some it is purely an art form, some a skill, and others a gift. I find that it doesn't have to contain all these elements to be poetry. It comes down to the attributes of the writer and preference, or"ear", of the reader.

I've rambled.

Marty

Marty, paraphrasing, in the strictest since of the word is just putting something you've read into your own words. Whether or not this is a poem, depends on your intent and your own creative ability.

Les

If anything can be said in prose, then poetry should be saved for saying nothing.
-- Pierre Albert-Birot