Poetry And Great Poetry
For The Poets. What Is The Difference?
I've said it so many times, written articles about it. I know it deep down in my soul, the difference in poetry and great poetry is emotion. If I can't feel a poem, it just isn't great poetry to me. It doesn't matter what the emotion may be, love, passion, pathos, humor, anger, fear or any other, it should permeate the poem and cause the reader to "FEEL".
I don't think a poet can write with convincing emotion unless he is feeling it himself. How can an artist produce a great painting without first seeing it, either before his physical eyes or the eyes of his imagination? The same principle holds true for the poet.
Think about it, the poets who have impacted your life, are they not poets who can produce strong emotive reactions in you? The day I cannot feel what I write I will lay the pen down as a favor to the world and poetry lovers.
If the language is flowery, the vocabulary amazing, what does that mean if the poem is a dead one? Give me a simple expression of honest emotion any day over grandiose ramblings that cause me to feel nothing but boredom.
If you or I ever aspire to become great poets, we must learn how to become open to the depths of our own spirits, both the light and the darkness. Some people live in denial of their dark sides when exposure of the shadows, the weakness, the searching, is the thing that would make them great.
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