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9.
AOTW: Wordsworth said, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." Do you agree? If not, what is poetry for you?
Marilyn Singer: That quote always sounds great, but I'm not sure I agree with it. I'm not sure the feelings are always powerful. Sometimes they're more subtle. And I'm not sure all poetry is about emotion either, unless we grant that all prose is, too, on some level, and that you have to be somewhat tranquil to write. I prefer Coleridge's quote: "Prose = words in their best order; Poetry = the best words in their best order." More of a recipe, perhaps, but a useful one I keep in mind when I'm writing.
Betsy Franco: My poetry comes from a deep place even when it's whimsical. It's emotional but it's also mental, spiritual, playful, and stimulating. I hardly ever start with an emotion, but my poetry sometimes expresses emotion in a subtle way.
Mary Ann Hoberman: I love Wordsworth's definition, just as I love Emily Dickinson's "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?" And Marianne Moore's "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." And Archibald MacLeish's "A poem should not mean/But be." Each poet defines poetry in her/his own way and each definition contributes to the Poet Tree. My own definition? See # 1 above.
Robin Hirsch: I think I've said enough! Far be it for me to take on Wordsworth...
Paul B. Janeczko: Poets wiser than I have tried to define poetry, so I'm not going to try to add to what they've said. But I do think the implication of the second part of your question --- what is poetry for you? --- is important because once you get through some of the basics of the art form, it is a personal question. For me, a good poem creates a world that somehow touches the reader. That world is built of images that come to the reader through vivid sense details and the music of vivacious language
Alan Katz: I think I agree. But it would help if I knew what to tune Wordsworth meant that to be sung.
Sonya Sones: He got the "overflow of powerful feelings" part right, but unfortunately, many of my emotions are not recollected in tranquility. I've even cried while writing some of my more painfully autobiographical poems for Stop Pretending. So I don't think Wordsworth's definition quite does it for me. I guess poetry for me is emotion recollected in chaos. I can't write about those intense feelings accurately unless I'm vividly reliving them while I'm writing about them. Wordsworth must have been a more highly evolved poet than me…
X. J. Kennedy: That famous definition remains pretty good, I think, although I might quibble that the feelings aren't always recollected --- they may be happening while one is writing a poem.
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