People have read poetry or listened to it or recited it because they liked it, because it gave them enjoyment. But this is not the whole answer. Poetry in all ages has been regarded as important, not simply as one of several alternative forms of amusement, as one person might choose bowling, another chess, and another poetry. Rather, it has been regarded as something central to existence, something having unique value to the fully realized life, something that we are better off for having and without which we are spiritually impoverished.
Laurence Perrine
I hope that you have found poetry—or perhaps poetry has found you. Welcome to the human race! After all, we are the only beings on this planet endowed with the capability to devise a written system of language, and poetry represents the essence of that language and its power.
Rita Dove
What is poetry, anyway? What do we mean when we talk about something being poetic? It's a strange thing we do, a strange thing we've been doing for thousands of years: trying to reveal something essential in as few words as possible. Maybe poetry is the art of using words to awaken us, somehow, to create epiphany, to shine a sudden light into our soul. There's an exhilaration to the experience of poetry, an exhilaration that humans have eternally sought. I suspect it's the essential thing that we want and need: connection to others. When it works, poetry opens a window to another person's experience, mind, heart, soul. We feel, suddenly, connected. That empathy with, that knowledge of, that love for another human being... doesn't it answer some essential emptiness in us, some yearning we hardly knew we had? Just for a moment. Then we seek another poem, another connection, another epiphany, more and deeper empathy.
Sometimes a poem doesn't work. It might be shining only a feeble light, or perhaps we're blind to it, or not really paying attention. Or maybe it's a really bright light, but in a direction or color we're not used to looking. We can get better at seeing the light, build our sensitivity to the signals a poem might be sending.
And we can get better at shining those lights ourselves, at marshaling the tools of poetry to illuminate, to awaken, to connect with each other.
That's the goal of this course: to fall in love every day with the way that words awaken us to the marvelous all around us. We'll read and write poetry together. We'll read our poetry to each other, and we'll listen deeply, perceive more and more of what shines through a poem. We'll learn about the tools poets use, and learn to revise, to brighten the lights we're shining on our world.
And then we'll go out there and shine.
Great poetry criteria...
Comparison, fewest words possible, drawing from life, full of details, important, surprise, big idea, not identifiable, but personal, mystery, transport us to another world