[New-Poetry] and yet it remains undefined...

[jforjames at aol.com]

Dennis Barone and I were talking today about how one tries to define poetry, the difficulty
and futility of even trying. I was saying to him that there are two basic categories of
definitions... 
1) The short, poetic and pithy ones which are memorable but not very emcompassing.
2) The long and explanatory ones that still fail to map the ambit of the art while dragging their chain
of prose.

Anyway this my last humble attempt to define what poetry is:

Words organized for affect; often employing the effects of sound, imagery and metaphor
through compressed expressions marked by their nuance or unusual perspective.

It sort falls in the second category...but the semi-colon gives the first part some aphoristic
punch, and what follows begins to bear the affect-effects thought echo. So it pleased me,
as far it goes. But my only real insight into the matter is this:

One definition of poetry is one’s defense of poetry.
-&-
Let your next poem openly refute your last definition of poetry.



Finnegan
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