Supplemental

What is the form of the poem? The topic of poetic forms can be summed up in two words, Open & Shut (though the latter may sometimes be referred to as Closed or Fixed). For the most part, this setup makes finding the answer to the first of the Fundamental 4 Questions (F4Q) easy because — mostly…Read moreRead more

Let them read poems. So, we each have our own working definition of poetry, summing up how we experience the stuff. We each, also, can quote a poet — most likely a dead one — who said something just so right about a poem that the conversation must be over. It isn’t. Why? Because, officially, this…Read moreRead more

Why are we talking “Poets Defining Poetry” when we’ve had to write our own definitions? Once you have your own definition you are not an immediate connoisseur of poetry who knows what’s what and how everyone should react to something. You’re equipped with your own dinner party definition of poetry with which to wow that mass…Read moreRead more

Presumably, we all know a poem when we see one, but how do we know? Certainly we know because poems look like poems and sound like poems and maybe even feel like poems. Yet, how do poems obtain that look and sound and feeling? Exactly what is poetry? The Merriam-Webster dictionary tells us poetry is “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative…Read moreRead more