Is It Music or Poetry
Music
stirs, formless,
a conscious work,
like words, vivid flute
or poetic arrow hitting its
mark.
for dVerse Poets, “Choices”. Playing with a new form. It needs a name, but for now I’ll call it 4-Square (16 words: 1.2.3.4.5.1) ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting on Twitter
This week I had new communication with an old acquaintance and she described poetry as inexplicable and said she felt that it suited our current world better than prose because of that. And I agree with her that poetry as a form is inexplicable. And yet I agree too with your poem – that poetic arrow.
LikeLike
Good question. I am not sure what the originator of the idea meant. But to me … if you ask what is a poem? I struggle to define it. When he learned that my poems don’t rhyme he said “Well what makes them poems then?” And I didn’t have an easy answer. I read somewhere that you just put in line breaks and take out some connecting words to make a poem. I don’t actually believe that but it’s hard to explain it otherwise. And poetry can be so floral and yet still cut to the very core of an issue. That’s what I took inexplicable to mean. Poetry has a mysterious power.
LikeLike
I think music and poetry are one and the same. If you look at great songwriters like Dylan, their work is easily classed as poetry. Even recognised by the Nobel people.
But there is an awful lot of inpenetrable poetry out there! (Not yours, I hasten to add.)
LikeLike
I’m thinking out loud here… Is Bach’s “Fantasia” poetry (there are no lyrics)? Are Dylan’s tunes poetry when the lyrics are omitted – when it’s just an instrumental? I certainly agree that Dylan’s lyrics are poetic, but if you only have the tune, is it poetry, ie poetic or poetry. To me, Bach’s Fantasia is poetry; Bach is a poet who uses a different form of expression. Same goes for Tchaikovsky; his scores are so dramatic! I remember many (many) years ago, my mother commenting how much she liked an instrumental version of “Michelle” but later when she heard the lyrics, she didn’t like it anymore. Anyway, I’m rattling on a bit now, and I think the lentils need stirring.
I think they’re identical, can be at least, in our response. Also, technically, a peom can have a rhythm just like a piece of music. How often do you add/cut words from one of your poems simply becaiuse it scans better? I bet you do all the time. I don’t much dabble in sereious peotry any more (the world has enough bad poets) but I used to all the time. Indeed forms like limericks or IP require a beat.
Yes. Yes. Very well put. 👍🏻
LikeLike
It's Still Life 
Leave a Reply