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| Heart | 74% | 1773 votes | Total: 2407 votes | |
| Mind | 26% | 634 votes |
Heart
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Add to FavoritesPoetry, by definition, is a literary form that expresses emotions. It is more personal than any other literary form, mainly and simply because it expresses a writer's feelings about something. Can any poet truly write about love without having been in love? Can a poet express feelings experienced when they encounter death, if they have not encountered death at all? How can a poet describe the experience of friendship or loss or pain or sorrow or intense joy if these have not been experienced at all?
Some people might argue that it is easy to describe these ideas using the mind. Sure it is. But is it poetry that speaks from the heart and reaches out to the hearts of its readers or listeners? An intellectual description of ideas or emotions would be so clinical, one might as well read a dictionary or an encyclopedia entry.
Some might argue that the best poetry conforms with patterns of rhythm or rhyme and follows certain defined structures set for different forms of poetry. Indeed, that is an accomplishment, to conform to all the rules of structured poetry and still speak to the reader's heart. Yet, I believe the best poets achieve structure largely by not focusing on it. Too much attention to structure often makes rhymes stilted and the rhythm forced. That is probably why I am an advocate of free verse. If rhyme and rhythm are achieved in the course of creating a poem, then that is just a little bonus to the heart of the poem.
As a poet, I have found that the poems that are my best were those that I wrote when I was feeling intensely about something. I have likewise tried intellectualizing my poetry and have found the results wanting. On the other hand, when I felt inspired to write poetry because of some intense emotion I was experiencing, I would more often than not come up with a poem that would make me feel that emotion over and over again, each time I read the poem.
The best poetry must carry a lyricism that is dictated not by strict patterns but by a natural and easy flow of words and ideas. The best poetry sings. It resonates in your body. It surges through you and makes you feel one with it. It draws you into the poet's experience or thoughts and makes you feel as if you were one with the poet. It makes you sigh or smile, frown or grimace, chuckle or groan. It warms or chills you in ways that nothing that is strictly intellectual can.
The best poetry is poetry with a heart simply because it comes straight from the heart.
Learn more about this author, Cynthia Lapena.
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Mind
"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words."
Robert Frost
Poetry, the best poetry is often a delicate balance between the heart and the mind. All poetry starts as an emotion, about some aspect of mankind and is examined in inumerate fashions. The mind may muse upon events, emotions, beliefs and moments of simply being. The heart takes these musings about that emotion that began the journey towards the formation of this writing. The mentalist becomes the artist with a blank canvas and begins to paint the images in words to invoke reactions as food for thought or musings for the heart and soul.
The mind poet will seek out imagery that may be stark and use words that allow the mind's eye to see the image clearly and to seek an intellectual response to these images. And yet, what of emotions, for is it not emotions that seek the deeper meaning of what the poet is seeking to express?
An interesting example would be that of the butterfly that flits from flower to flower. The poet may examine this butterfly with his mind, as a member of the order of the Lepidoptera. The mind may examine the cycle of the butterfly as having the stages of caterpillar, a pupal stage and the transition into the butterfly with a cycle of life quite short in comparison to humans. The poet may use the butterfly as a symbol of the life cycle, birth, life and transition to death. This view maybe very scientific, and yes may be though provoking, but isn't it with emotions that we truly feel the butterfly and the miracle that is a butterfly?
The poet of heart may see this butterfly as a magnificent miracle of nature. This butterfly may be described with all the colors of emotions, as a creature of grand beauty and a symbol of the metamorphosis to humans seeking spiritual or emotional evolution. The poet of heart will paint feelings of joy, sorrow, happiness and wonder with the simplest of emotional adjectives.
The challenge becomes that balance between the mind and heart to be able to keenly observe and record with the eye of perhaps the scientist and the words of the artist who paints emotions all the colours of the human emotional spectrum. The poet may examine the subject and yet the choice of words for this poem should be impacted by the emotions of lack of emotions for the subject. Poetry is meant to capture the imagination, the emotions, and become a part of the thoughts of the reader. Thus is is not hard to see why poetry is indeed a balance between the heart and the mind.
Learn more about this author, Melody Landeros.
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