Poems and Poetry--and the difference.

.....Cuz Ruthie may put to music anything that pleases her; she took me to task for my remarks about her current occupation; that is, putting to music the poetry of some poet I'm not particularly fond of.  It is my problem, not hers. Oh, he writes poems, but in my view they do not elevate the spirit or evoke deep emotions, maybe the music will help it along.  Yes, in my previous post I began to define the difference between "poems" and "poetry".  The first requirement of poetry, I feel, is word choice.  It is very important to find the right word of all those that are available and then to put it in the right place.  Not easy to do. Faustus upon first seeing the most beautiful girl in the world called Helen of Troy, says, "Is this the face that launched 1000 ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?" Christopher Marlowe doesn't write "Is this the girl" or "Is this the woman..." He uses the word, "face" because it emphasizes her beauty and because of her, the Trojan War began. Ilium is the word he selects because the name carries with it the destruction of Troy. And Marlowe in two lines of poetry elsewhere captures the world and the soul when he writes, "Where both deliberate, the love is slight, Whoever loved that loved not at first sight." It's an emotional and a powerful statement, not a question. It gets one to thinking, and that is poetry, and poetry makes you think. And a poem makes you say, "Oh, isn't that cute!" I'm not finished so stay tuned.

 

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JULY 14, 2014

 

.....Tomorrow we have to get up too early for me in order to catch the bus here to go on a City of Hope tour to Naples. I'm not too fond of this trip because all you get to see are the Everglades, and occasionally a bird.  Then when we arrive, I suppose this bus, filled with about 60 people and an old man, will stop for lunch, but I don't know where.  I hope it's not Wendy's, Burger King, nor McDonalds.  There's nothing to eat there. After lunch, we'll be taken to a Mall where we can shop.  Whooopy!  Once we experience that exciting event, we'll all go the see, "Joseph and His Coat or Something", and then on to the hotel where we will stay overnight.  The following day we'll be riding home and stopping at the Hard Rock Casino where Rh+ and I can visit our money.  We are taking this tour just to get out of the house. As for me--there's little else to do now besides working on this blog--which I've been doing for 7 years.  Since I've turned 90, I've given up driving and Rh+ has to take me wherever I have to go--which usually is to see some doctor.  I have a cardiologist, a dermatologist, a neurologist, an internist, a urologist--and this doesn't count the doctors I see at the VA.  Oh, well, I guess they are keeping me alive.

 

.....Those of you who are not interested needn't continue because I want to add to my definition of poetry.  So far I've written that poetry requires the right word in the right place.  Secondly "poetry" makes you THINK; "poems" do not.  For a poem to become poetry it must also create some kind of emotion--excitation, passion, and even, at times, despair. Witness Byron's "She Walks in Beauty, and "Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night."  When the reader shares the poet's emotion, that's poetry. There is more, but so far these are enough challenges for the poet to create poetry and define it. Now you can make me immortal, Ruthie!