by Peter Quitadamo

Created on: November 09, 2010

To try and answer the question "What is poetry?"is like trying to count the stars in the sky.  It can not be done, and if by some change it were possible, it should not be done.  As Bill Waterson wrote in a Calvin and Hobbes strip, "That's the problem with scientists.  You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder".  Some things simply should not be described or analyzed, because by doing so, one ruins the beauty of the object.

Poetry is the writer baring his soul for the reader to see.  It is the most personal thing that a human being can share with another.  Reading someone's poetry is like staring through them and seeing every millimeter of their character.  Nothing reveals who a person is and what they think of things like their poetry.  The reader can immediately tell what kind of life and what outlook the author has on life.  Some poems are brief, some witty, some sardonic, still others will make the reader weep.  Poetry is one of the most diverse kinds of literature, ranging from haiku's and couplets, to the epic poems of Homer and sonnets of Shakespeare.  

Look around, nature is poetry.  Poetry is intrinsically within all things beautiful, and all things ugly.  Human beings are poetry, forks and spoons have the ability to be poetry.  Poetry is simply the expression of one's feelings or telling of some story with a rhythm.  Even infants recognize beautiful poetry when they hear it, they stop what they're doing and listen to their mother pour out her feelings to them or read a colorful Dr. Seuss book.  Poetry is prose with rhythm and beauty.  Prose has beauty as well, but there is something about poetry that drags the reader in, and makes the imagination run amok, vividly seeing all that was described.  The best poetry is the kind that was never meant to be seen, the poems where one can feel the tortured soul of the poet being poured onto the piece of paper.  The best poetry is a dirty couplet that makes the reader chuckle.  The best poetry is a beautiful description of a fall day, or a story about a path less traveled.  The best kind of poetry is any kind of poetry.

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