So I inadvertently asked my mother what she thought poetry was today. I said I thought it was about ego, and she told me that she thought it basically boiled down to connection, and hoping what you write connects with someone else.
I don't think that I agree, though I wasn't sure (while laying on the couch discussing this) how to argue against it. I guess on some level poetry is about connection. But then I think about all the poetry we have read or have listened to where there is no connection. It isn't about pretty lakes/forests/birds/deer/mountains/[insert more nature words and phrases here], lost loves, or finding yourself...all the things a regular Joe person usually associates with connecting to poetry....but it's the poet who writes (and maybe even says)about nothing, that it is all about sounds...it's about sounds.
Are sounds connection? Do I connect with sounds? When sounds form words, and then those words form sentences, and those sentences are coherent (and maybe even commanding) then I guess I connect, but what about when you see:
Uhgha mugga mooga moof-frickle bood facky miffle morf. Naffy gordon copple plaf.
Do you connect with that readers? Do you have some emotional connection to mooga moof?Ok, yes I admit it, I am being facetious writing that.
Then it got me thinking...anybody here watch Home Improvement? If you do, or did, or you are familiar with Tim Allen you will probably get what I am about to say and have probably imitated it:
Tim the Tool Man Taylor, in every episode makes grunting noises. They differ in pitch and tone depending on the situation but it's still grunting...yet the audience gets exactly what that grunt means in that moment. It can be an excited grunt, a confused grunt, an angry grunt, or a grunt of despair.The point is they are mostly just noises...not even words but they inflict an emotion.
So what would happen if those grunts were on a page rather then on t.v? Would they convey the same emotional connection? I am guessing that if one was to read it correctly it would- but on paper how would one convey that connection?
Oh oh oh oh oh
wrowro oh ah ah ah ah
AH AH AH AH!
Is that anger? Sadness? Tenderness? Or complete bullshit? I really don't know, yet if Tim Allen were here to read it out loud maybe he could convey some deep emotional feelings that will make me weep in joy.
So maybe just maybe when read the right way even Uhgha mugga mooga moof-frickle bood facky miffle morf. Naffy gordon copple plaf. Would have someone balling like a little baby.
So where was I? Oh yeah connection. Maybe it really is all about connection maybe the poet doesn't even care what connection it is as long as one connects.
So maybe it really is about ego, we are trying to make someone feel something and if we succeed it is because we are the masters of some higher power.
It's like bully's encouraging the little kid to cry and then getting some sick joy out of watching that kid ball their eyes out...they are so porud of themselves because they got the kid to cry.
So what am I saying? Is poetry all about being egotistical bullies? Maybe.
I think there is so much to poetry, so much I want to write about and share and ask but there is always not enough time to soak it all in. Life is like that, you can never answer the question in exactly the way you were initially thinking.
I could go on and on, trying to convey every thought I have about poetry...but then I wouldn't be giving anybody else a turn. So there, I have written a small snippet of how my brain works, and what I think poetry, and writing poetry is all about.
and hopefully, I have made a connection...
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