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

[JforJames at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/14/2007 8:24:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jfq at myuw.net  
writes:

I agree  that it's as easy to define a poem as it is to define a meal. It 
only appears  to become difficult when you start trying to express those things 
that aren't  really expressible in plain language. The problem is that people 
often try to  express publicly things for which there are no public criteria 
for the  meaningfulness of. I disagree that the effects of aesthetic experience 
will be  detectable in the brain. I'm sure though that we will some day find 
analogs of  the aesthetic experience in the brain just like we have with motor 
function  and whatnot. The aesthetic experience is private and the only ground 
we have  for believing other people have them is that other people often 
report having  them in relation to the same things that make us have them. you 
can't go any  deeper than that, grammar won't support it.



Jason, it more than appears to become difficult, it is. (I'd like to see  
your definition, if you've composed
one and would care to share it.) What other than with 'plain  language' would 
a definition be made of? Language is the medium of poetry  and so it makes 
sense that in language we would try to define it. 
 
This that you wrote, makes sense to me, "trying to express those  things that 
aren't really expressible,"
 because it at least expresses what so many poets through history have  said 
about poetry.
Finnegan



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