On Poetry

Poetry has forever been a primary mode of expression for mankind. Since the earlist times, men have sung rather than told their stories, and their songs were nothing more than poems put to music. But what exactly is poetry? Is it simply a set of words, like Whitman, organized in no particular way except that it met the author's fancy? Or is there more to poetry, stricter rules which define this beautiful form of art?

We must concern ourselves with two major areas: mechanics and substance. The mechanics of poetry, one would think, is relatively simple. However, in our modern and degenerate days, deconstructionism and libertinism have invaded even the sacred realm of the bard, and a simple understanding of the mechanics of poetry is now beyond the ken of the average man. "Free verse" is now the dominate form of poetry, though "form" is an inadequate name, for the very distinctiveness of free verse is that it has no form. It is chaos; lines are broken at the whim of the author, whenever he feels the sound is right, or even for no reason at all. This, I am not afraid to say, is not poetry.

Poetry is writing organized into lines. When I say "lines" I do not refer to physical lines on a page, but to a distinct unit of a poem. Much ancient poetry was not broken into physical lines, notably the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf; however, even such works were divided into the lines of which I speak. A proper definition of "line" in the poetical sense is "the smallest indivisible unit of words." Certainly, lines are divisible into feet, half-lines, what have you. However, by "indivisible" I mean "standing alone"; everything in the poem must come in these units. One cannot simply place two feet at the end of a poem; those two feet are insufficient, they are too small; they require the rest of their line to be completed. If one's rules in writing allow one to have anything other than a line standing alone, then one is not writing poetry; one is writing prose with irregular line-breaks.

Why make this requirement of poetry? Because otherwise it is no different than prose. Poetry is distinguished from prose by its intense and strict discipline and in no other way. Poetry has rhythm, but so does prose. Poetry has depth and meaning, but so does prose. The only thing that distinguishes poetry from prose is the fact that it is ordered by lines in this way. So the division of a poem into indivisible units called "lines" is necessary for it to be a poem; if it cannot be so divided, then it is at best imperfect poetry, and at worst poetical prose.

In what manner are these lines distinguished; that is, how do we distinguish the indivisible parts? That varies greatly from culture to culture, and is done in many beautiful ways. In traditional French, some Spanish, Italian, and modern English poetry, rhyme and meter is the primary distinction; in Anglo-Saxon and some Hebrew poetry, alliteration was the key; in ancient Greek and Latin poetry, vocalic length distinguished the line; and in some Hebrew poetry, repitition served. The important factor is that some distinction is used. Often a culture will borrow a distinction from another culture, as the English borrowed rhyme from the French, replacing their native alliteration; generally, however, such borrowing is a detriment. In fact, on the whole the English borrowing of rhyme was deleterious for English poetry because the language is not suited for it. French and Italian, who use rhyme beautifully, are very vocalic languages, and rhyme is therefore very suitable for them. English, on the other hand, despite a great deal of French influence, remains extremely consonantal, and alliteration is therefore much more fitting. (This did not, of course, prevent many of our greatest poets from writing masterpieces in rhyme, as did Shakespeare and Chaucer, among others.) Cultural norms are generally the best because they have been selected through centuries of actual bardic practice; occasional borrowing, however, serves to enrich a culture's poetry, and can be an extremely beneficial thing.

Mechanics now examined, what is the substance of poetry? What is the spirit of this art? It is, it appears, precisely the order which the mechanics just discussed create. To prove this we need merely ask the question that we asked while discussing mechanics: otherwise, what distinguishes poetry from prose? Prose is the arrangement of ideas and the narration of events, whether fictional or true, in written form; that is a sufficient definition. How is poetry different? Poetry is the arrangement of ideas and the narration of events, both fictional and true; however, this arrangement must be in accordance with the conventions of the customary line. Otherwise, Shakespeare is just a normal playwright, and the Iliad is just a long novel. At the end of the day, then, the substance and the mechanics of poetry are the same: the order which cultural conventions impose upon the line. That order clarifies meaning, induces good passions, and raises the mind to contemplation in a way that simple prose never can. Art perfects nature, and speech is natural; poetry is one of the arts which perfects it, brings order to it, makes it more useful for the glory of God and the good of souls. To what greater end, we must ask, can the poet aspire?