I’m in English 203: Poetics, with Dr. Doggett, and lately we’ve been studying the originals, you know, Plato, Aristotle, Shelley, Wordsworth, and analyzing their thoughts on poetry. Originally, poetry was thought to be imitation of life and art, and therefore, a lesser art. Despite their ideas that poetry was lesser, poetry was also seen as divine, through the Oracles of Delphi, but history was also told with poetry. Wordsworth stated that poetry had a way of taking something ordinary and using creativity to make these happenstance events unique. That, I think, was my favorite point made.
Poetry is a way of looking at life and thinking of phrasing it in a way that connects to people. It’s a way of looking at language and the double-meanings and how it applies to people as a whole. We connect through art and how it invokes emotions within us.
Overall, I enjoy writing because, as someone who struggles to connect face to face, I can connect through my words and emotions. I have time to string together my words and thoughts to show what I see and how I feel to show to other people how I see the world. When people find their own thoughts, their own feelings, in the words on the page, they can connect, and that is what I think poetry is. It is the imitation of real life, and there is a divine sense to it, through our means of connecting even when we have never met someone.