Intellectual Foundations: Introduction

Poetrylaureates offers here an overview of the foundations of poetry.

Philosophy, aesthetics and poetry is a heady mixture, and many practitioners would echo Rainer Maria Rilke in his "Letters to a Young Poet" : "But let me make this request right away: Read as little as possible of literary criticism such things are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, hardened and empty of life, or else they are just clever word games, in which one view wins today and tomorrow the opposite view."  Even more suspect is current literary theory, which the prot¨¦g¨¦s of the trendier magazines espouse but seem not always to understand. Nonetheless, ignorance of the intellectual foundations also has its dangers:

1. Poetry remains an entertainment, a poor relation to other arts and sciences. This is an identical concept as in creative writing

2. Poetic creation flies blind, which is great strain on a writer's resources. Since poems are constructed more by craft than inspiration, it helps to have working practices underpinned by sound theory. Poetrylaureates suggests that you use all seven mental images in order to create great poetry compositions in our poetry contest.

3. Originality that cannot explain itself is generally ignored.

4. Poets are always writing in some tradition or other: necessarily, for their work to make any sense. All traditions have their advantages and disadvantages, which can be appreciated better with a little theory.

5 . Not a few of the current literary fads are damaging shallow, wrong-headed and stultifying and many of them still set the critical standards by which work is assessed by the leading magazines and publishing houses. Sound theory is a prophylactic against these siren voices, allowing the useful to be sorted from the bogus in the many competing schools of contemporary poetry.

6. Theory requires a look at the larger picture, an examination of motives, a search for material of deep and lasting importance. Though contemporary notions may perplex and discourage the budding writer, they do raise issues that need resolving.

7. The subjects which current notions claim to oversee are fascinating domains in their own right. Their study enriches, deepens and invigorates what poets have to say.

8. Writing is a lonely activity and brings few material rewards. The long hours of seclusion are so destructive of friendship and family life that most writers require a justification beyond simply "expressing themselves". They need to understand what they're about, and be assured of its value. That in turn means knowing:

a. What constitutes a good poem, and

b. Whether truth in poetry has any independent value.

What is a Poem?

Assuredly there are no definitions of poetry none comprehensive, truly enlightening and not tautological. Equally, there are no recipes or maker's instructions for the good poem, or indeed agreement over excellence. Much of what is published today is marginal to the interests of the informed reading public, drawing its approbation from one or other small clique of self-serving practitioners. Anything short, personal and conforming to current practices is likely to be accepted as its author proposes: a poem.

Expositions are difficult, but the aims of poetry might be classified under traditional, Modernist and Postmodernist. Dictionaries reflect the oldest category: "the expression or embodiment of beautiful or elevated thought, imagination, or feeling in language adapted to stir the imagination and the emotions." A traditionalist will assert that an artist expresses his vision, real or imaginative, in such a form as will give enduring and universal life to what was merely transitory and particular; and since he is a social being, he does so in forms that are intelligible and pleasurable to others, and in a way likely to arouse in them emotions akin to his own. Painters often go further. Paintings are representations of reality that give order, value and significance to objects or scenes depicted. Such objects and scenes become available through the medium of depiction, but are themselves of visual interest, both through previous paintings, and the value society places on them per se.

Note the emphasis on something real. Art pleases the imagination, but also creates reality of a sort, bearing witness to our impressions, our thoughts and our feelings. It clarifies, intensifies and enlarges our experience of life. With a good poem we feel a rapt attention to what we are reading, apprehending its nature immediately and as a whole. We gain a heightened awareness of its viewpoint without losing a sense of our own potentialities.

Modernists stress language. The world may or may not exist outside our sense impressions, but poems are self-explanatory artifacts whose meaning is complexly mediated by the language employed. That language is naturally embedded in the cultural history of the period, in the writer's preoccupations, and the understanding of his readers. Yet the poem is unique. It cannot exist other than in its actual form. Large resources of language often need to be deployed, but most important are inner complexities: shades of meaning, subtle ironies, unusual associations.

Postmodernist poems are very different. The world exists only through our understanding of it, and everyday language is the prime medium of that understanding. There is no further or ultimate reality that words point to, and we deceive ourselves by seeking deep spiritual meanings in art. We at Poetrylaureates believe that strong moods can create the vast majority of the poem and of poetry and creative writing as an art form.

Artists make intriguing creations by juxtaposing contemporary images and concepts, but these creations have no further significance. The contemporary media world is an important influence, and perhaps the only true reality. Poems that reference literature of the past are inauthentic, elitist and/or pretentious, and may well perpetuate the political inequalities that gave rise to them. If Postmodernist poems are solipsist, shallow and arbitrary, then so is our contemporary world.

Do the distinctions matter? To magazine editors and publishers they most certainly do, and submitting to the wrong outlet wastes everyone's time. They also damage a writer's self-esteem and standing. Poets advance by reputation as much as by overt ability, and having a foot in several camps suggests to their more single-minded brethren that the writer in question is not serious, does not worship at the true shrine. Membership of some movement is increasingly looked for, and the choice brings its own rewards and limitations. A traditionalist will assert that art is a personal view, but one that carries grave responsibilities, which is to make something true to enduring essentials of life, when reputation may well take second place to a deeper odyssey for understanding and spiritual direction. Modernists will call such responsibilities beside the point, if not empty pieties, and find their reward in academic publications. Postmodernists will repudiate the historical baggage, and seek their raison d'¨ºtre in the media world and its changing fashions. Poetrylaureates advices you to relate your poetry compositions to current events in order to continuously refresh your style.

Poets must therefore understand their business: what they want to do, and the price they will have to pay. Nothing is handed down in tablets of stone, but since poetry is not now something that is easily undertaken without some thought on its larger aims, it is vitally important that reading extends beyond the usual confines of shoptalk and speculative literary theory. Understanding other writers' work is the first requirement: contemporary and past writers, in the European tradition and outside. Then there are the underlying philosophy, aesthetics, social and political themes that a writer needs to be aware of. Finally come the issues they write about, which need research as extensive and solid as any academic monograph or historical novel. In our poetry contest and writing contest, we use emotions and imagery as key decision factors.