Poetry Definitions
What is poetry? How is it taught? How do people respond to it?
Which definitions do you agree with or reflect your own experiences?
Which do you take issue with?
Introduce yourself to your Canadian and British audience on the Introductions page if you haven't already done so. In your groups, add your comments, devise your own definitions and respond to other people’s ideas.
Please try to make at least one contribution by 7th October 9am (GMT).
Poetry as defined by poets and other writers:
• ‘a verbal contraption’ (WH Auden 1968)
• ‘a tough old bird’ (Horner 1999)
• ‘a knit of words’ (George Steiner 1978)
• ‘The best words in the best order’ (Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1827)
• poetry demands of its readership ‘a new effort of attention’ (DH Lawrence 1927)
• ‘Poetry is that/ which arrives at the intellect/ by way of the heart’ (RS Thomas 2002)
• ‘Poetry is either language lit up by life or life lit up by language’ (Peter Porter 1995)
• ‘Poetry is philosophy’s sister, the one that wears makeup.’ (Jennifer Grotz 2005)
• Poetry is energy, it is an energy-storing and an energy releasing device’ (Miroslav Holub 1990)
• ‘Poetry is what makes the invisible appear.’ (Nathalie Sarraute 2002)
• ‘Poetry is language in orbit.’ (Seamus Heaney 1994)
Poetry as defined by critics and researchers:
• ‘Like a microscope’ (Andrews 1991)
• ‘a jigsaw puzzle’ (Baldwin 1959)
• ‘Poetry is the microwave oven of the arts’ (Robert Hanks 1994)
• students ‘often find the language, imagery and diction of poetry “alien”, that it belongs in any case to the
“posh” (Peter Benton 1986)
• ‘often we imply that poems are riddles with single solutions which we, the teachers, happen to know rather
than objects crafted in a medium of riddling wordplay, yielding a range of meanings.’
(Michael Benton & Geoff Fox 1985)
• ‘a particularly distilled containment of metaphoric activity’ (Harrison & Gordon 1983)
Poetry as defined in government documents about English teaching:
• language on the ‘frontiers’ (DES 1987)
• ‘poetry is not a minor amenity but a major channel of experience’ (Newsom Report 1963)
Poetry as defined by beginning teachers – please add your own definitions (and others you have found) in your groups below. Also, share your favourite poem with the group and explain why you chose it:
Comments (3)
Anonymous said
at 7:11 am on Oct 3, 2008
I like the definition that poetry allows the invisble to appear. poetry has revealed things about myself to myself that i didn't know before. equally, when i write poetry i can form into words those thoughts or feelings that are hard to comprehend.
Anonymous said
at 10:27 am on Oct 5, 2008
I agree that definition is interesting. I think poetry is a very purified form of writing that communicates powerful feelings and ideas- most of which are not apparent at the first glance. In order to find meaning or develop understanding of a poem you usually have to decode it and reveal the invisable.
Anonymous said
at 12:45 pm on Oct 19, 2008
I love poetry as a puzzle. It's fun to decipher! And I like the fact that punctuation can add so much meaning and all the subtle nuances! 'The Wasteland' is a really good exam of this!
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