Merlin Betts
As I was starting to build some of our poetry listings on here, I starting thinking to myself (as I often have before), what’s the point of poetry?
A quick internet search seemed to obscure things further. Results said it’s an “elevated form of communication”. That it’s about using all kinds of strange linguistic tools and word combinations. And that might not be wrong, but it ain’t right either.
Poetry is about giving yourself the space and the confidence to say what you mean. Hmm. Well… sometimes it is. In these modern days we often use the written word to express ourselves, but it’s not so often that we stop and try to distil our meaning into a concise package. And poetry is a discipline which encourages you to do that, gives you space for it, suggests techniques to assist it. But there’s something else as well:
Poetry is about making images with words. And in one sense this is as simple as a child drawing a house. In another sense, it’s as complicated as a masterpiece of abstract art. Poetry can be deliberately obtuse, or so specific in its target that it lacks widespread audience appeal, or it could just be a few easy words about home, a loved one, or it could be a chart-topping banger. There’s room for all of this. It really depends on what the poet wants to achieve. And there is no specific formula that makes someone a poet, beyond their wanting to conjure something with a few lines.
It could be controversial, but I think lyricists are poets. They’re at one extreme of the medium – accompanied by music and performance – but I’d still want to call it poetry.
And going dangerously far down that line of thinking… any form of verbal communication, written or spoken, could be poetry. I think the key identifier is probably an intent: not so much to make a poem, but to go beyond the basic significance of words.
Maths would be a very effective language if we could process it quick enough to use it for conversation. It would be incredibly precise. In theory, you wouldn’t need to imply anything, you could just paint an exact picture with numbers. (In theory.) So the poetic thing, the poetic impulse, is to use language in a different way: to acknowledge that the words we have do not possess a mathematic precision, and so realise a responsibility – that if you want to communicate, if you want to tell someone what you mean, you kinda have to… refer them to the grey areas in between the words. Because your meaning lurks between and around and beside the other, not-quite-precise meanings. You have to paint a picture and hope that your reader, or listener, recognises enough of what it is. Hears enough of what you’re saying. Hope that your image is conjured in their mind.
That makes it sounds incredibly complicated. It’s not. It’s intuitive. Like breathing, or walking, making bodily movements. The more you do it, the more you subconsciously pick up on its operation. You can think about it consciously too, and it’s probably more helpful thinking about poetry consciously than it is thinking about breathing consciously (don’t try that – it normally makes people panic). But yeah, either way, it’ll make you panic. So don’t think too much, just do it, and maybe think about it after. It’s words, one of those rare areas where you’re allowed to act before thinking. Enjoy it.
I mean that’s kinda what the point of poetry is: to have a nice time (or maybe express, ‘discharge’ something awful, so that then you can have a nice time). And, because it’s communication, it’s about sharing that with others too. I think it’s almost magical.