by Amy Shannon Woodford

Created on: February 15, 2009

To respond to this ridiculous question, I'm afraid I must begin by being dreadfully pedantic and note that poetry cannot come from the heart at all. What I suppose the inquisitor means to ask is whether the best poetry comes from the portion of the brain from which certain emotions originate, or from the region where logic resides. Even that interpretation presupposes the two can be neatly bisected.

Though by now it should be evident on which side of the matter I fall, I must first concede emotion as prerequisite for the composition of most poetry. A writer does not approach the most difficult form of written communication without some compelling impulse. However, that emotion need not be one we would associate with "heart"; many great poems originate from a sense of moral outrage or political injustice, for instance.

While emotion may be the precursor for poetic musings, even the most heartfelt sentiments remain no more than shapeless sophomoric gushing without the artistic forming of the poet's mind. I might venture to question still another notion implied by the question, the idea that poetry "comes from" somewhere rather than being crafted with clear intent by the poet. One cannot become a good poet if one labors under the delusion that great poems spring forth fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.

Examining the inverse of the proposition therefore becomes its proof. While it might be possible to hesitate over whether the best poems come from the unadulterated mind without inspiration from the "heart," it is certainly easy to conclude that the worst poetry falls onto the page without any apparent intervention from the mind. Even Wordsworth, that most Romantic of bards, who defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," immediately followed by noting that it "takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." Too many would-be poets ignore the need to recollect in tranquility.

As a teacher, sometimes of poetry workshops, I've heard every argument for why a poem should not be revised, as if changing one whit of an original draft somehow negated the emotion that ignited it. I have often advised that if the purpose for writing a poem is therapy, simply putting the emotions down, then fine, but the poet should either choose a different form or keep the results in a dark closet all to herself. Poetry is not simply prose with line breaks, nor is it a form that exists so writers can ignore the rules of good prose. I responded

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