The Art of Words

What does poetry mean to me? Well, that’s a simple question! Almost as ridiculous as the question, “why does a fish need water to live?” Poetry is a biological, intangible, subject that we, as humans, cannot erase from our genome as well as history but this is only from the viewpoint of an optimist. Poetry is a literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm but this is only from the viewpoint of a realist. If you were to look at the question, “what does poetry mean to you?” from the viewpoint of an optimist then you would receive a completely different answer when compared to a realist; maybe something along the lines of beauty, art, or symbolic pieces of alliteration that reaches deep down into a persons being and slowly caresses their soul. Dramatic isn’t it? Whereas a realist would state intellectual facts when compared to an optimist, such as the rhetorical devices used to create the piece we know as poetry. Now see how these two are different; the realist and the optimist in regards to poetry? One is intellectually correct while the other is emotional or spiritually correct. And so, when answering the question, “what does poetry mean to you?” What the devil are the judges looking for? A totally out of this world response that would make them question their entire existence on the face of the planet, an original response from a no-good-goodie-two-shoe that answers the question fully and accurately, or just a blank page because either the person completing the scholarship couldn’t project his or her thoughts into coherent sentences or was too lazy to finish it. The question is completely unanswerable because of the different possibilities, unique personalities, and high expectations of the judges and the authors answering this unanswerable question. Well, I don’t know what you people want but as for me poetry means expressing oneself using both intellect and spirituality to create an image in the mind by using a piece of paper with blots of ink on it in the shape of letters and symbols used to make words and sensible sentences for understanding.  The role of poetry, however, is to invoke a feeling in both the reader and the author. The author is using his or her intuition and life experiences to pour out their emotions onto paper and in between every space separating words, or every page, there is a feeling that presents itself to the reader and in turn evokes a feeling in them. That, my friend, is what poetry means to me.