Workshop: What makes it poetry?

[heinzs]

An excellent response, thanks!

[bags123]

I agree,...an excellent response. Especially from an Aussie.

[totsakanth]

Thanks fellers. You blokes don't seem too bad. For non-Aussies that is!

[Graeme]

I read with interest the example of what poetry is -

I feel that poetry is an art form, but then again prose can be art too. Prose as an art can also say volumes beyond the words.

These quotes come from Jean Sheppard's In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash

"Steathly I dressed in my icy cordory knickers, my sheep skin coat, and my plaid sweater. I pulled on my high tops. . . "

"The sun roaringm brightly and brilliantly over Pulaskis" Candy Store. . . "

These are quotes from prose, and yet the words speak volumes - setting the age of the child, the time in our history, the location of the story.

By the way. Poetry using rhyme and meter was the fad, not the other way around. Poetry originally had neither.

[bags123]

By the way. Poetry using rhyme and meter was the fad, not the other way around. Poetry originally had neither.

Hogwash!!!

[blood_dragonknight]

now I'm back here, tryin' to sort it out
one fence-post at a time..."

What that line says to me is, he is back home in Texas, alone, buildin' fences, remembering all that happened between him and a woman, as hes workin. It also says that he regrets and doesn't fully understand everything that happened. I've never heard the song, thinkin of lookin it up on youtube lol. It sums up the entire song as a poor ole cowboy done went an run oft wif a wild woman, who he helped on the side of the road, but after she got him ta take her where she wanted ta be, he didn't fit in so he had ta come back home lol. Sorry this song is just a story from my own past, havin one of those been there done that moments lol. Also sorry if I'm breathin life into a dead topic lol.


And my feelings on the topics questions, what makes it poetry, are this. I don't think its the words, nor the format. I think it's the overall message that the writer is attempting to convey to the audience. To me how you word it and how you work the words is irrelevant to the overall intention of the writer. But thats just my opinion, because I know that all my "works" have an underlying message and meaning. Usually that message is to teach others, and ta tell myself, NOT ta do this crap cause it hurts like hell lmao.