Poetry + Misconceptions?

[Thespian]

Alrighty, so I definitely enjoy writing. It's one of my primary pass-times and best skills. Be it short stories, role playing, or little one-scene plays. I simply love to write, and often when bored, maybe just day dreaming in class, I'll scrawl a little poem somewhere, scribbling out and replacing the lines till I'm happy with it then rewriting it when I get home. I have only two or three that I'm actually proud of, but I still love poetry.

Still, whilst talking to a lot of my friends or close family members, I found that a lot of the views on poetry was that it was, well, pretension fancifully dancing around what you actually want to say. And I have to agree that, as a very logically-minded person, I don't understand why you would want to coat your feelings in endless layers of imagery and wordplay when you could use that same amount of eloquence to explain them.
Of course, Poetry is not about hiding feelings, but using the poetic techniques the express your views more powerfully. I think the WW1 poet Wilfred Owen does this spectacularly in Dulce Et Decorum Est - Yeah, yeah, it's a real student's poem and I'm an uncultured boob, but hey, I make do with what I got. Anywho WW1 could have been fought with egg whisks and super soakers on the planet zog for all I know of military history, but the poem still made me feel strongly about war. The imagery was so powerful and almost sickening that it made the poem almost tangible. The art of poetry is to give your words additional impact. Explaining this to the naysayers I mentioned before with reference to poems, how poetry is supposed to convey understanding not be unnecessarily complicated , they all seemed to be pretty surprised that poetry could be used that way.
A lot of poems I've read, even those considered classics, seem to be based on some misconceptions.
Now obviously it's not up to me to define the art-form or anything, but I do believe that poetry should be used in a certain way, and, in my opinion, some artists have gotten bogged down in the aspect of laying intricate webs of pretty wording and sacrificed the significance of the message in order to do so.

Anywho, that's just my two cents. Here's what I wanna know:

What do you think about the medium of Poetry, and what is most important to it? Do you read or write it often? Like it? Hate it? Unfamiliar?

Tl;Dr: Poetry should be used to employ imagery to convey your point with added clarity, not act as a riddle to discern your true feelings. Agree/disagree/discuss?

 

[Serving UpSmiles]

I've read that Poem, to be honest the only people that understand poetry are the poets themsevles.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Haikus... how many times have I come across the bullshit people pass for haikus.

'How far from the floating world,
These mountain cherries are!'

(translation by Tanaka Minoru)

Whatever you hell you want if you know who said that to whom and when.

OT: I'm not really in much of a position to say (since I don't read much by way of western poetry), though most Japanese poetry (death poems and otherwise) typically convey quite a powerful singular emotion (such as joy in the above) with minimal expression and often traditional imagery.

And that's the way it should be.

However, emotiveness aside, there are the epic poems which are pure story, so it really depends on era.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I'm not a big fan of poetry, which made my Poetry writing module fun last year.

There's only a few poems I enjoy reading, but when I do find a poem that I like, it's usually a really strong emotion. I can read and dozen books and like them all a little bit, enough to read again perhaps but nothing too amazing, but read a dozen poems and one of them I end up memorising and loving forever.

But generally I am of the opinion that poetry, especially a lot of modern poetry, is very pretentious. There just seems to be something about the way that rhythm immediately makes something sound just a little bit more arty and annoying.

Or I could just be saying that because I was forced to read a student's portfolio a few days ago where he honestly compared his work to such greats as Peer Gynt and Rime of the Ancynt Mariner. I may be a pretentious arrogant tosspot writer, but I wouldn't even go so far as to compare myself to JK Rowling, let alone some of the great writers.

 

[Thespian]

-snip-

I agree with you on both points. Firstly, yes modern poetry can be pretentious. Hence I like war poets - They tend to be less arty and annoying and more brutal and foreward with their points.

And secondly, yes I believe being mature enough to realize that you know enough about writing to know that you know very little indeed is a good sign of an artist.

 

[ScoopMeister]

If written properly (obviously), I think that poetry can be one of the most beautiful and moving mediums with which to convey your thoughts and emotions (second, probably, to music). As a budding novelist (I hope!) myself, I've never actually been that good at poetry. I had a couple of poems published in low-budget anthologies when I was eight or so, but that doesn't really count.
I agree with everything you said in your post, thanks for putting it up!

 

[Weskerbot3000]

poetry is the most pretentious form of literature i have ever seen. it needs to stop.