What Poetry Is

I see many struggle with this question. And many answer it, by asking the question, and then telling the answer lies within themselves. Simply, who they are.

Truthfully, unless you're interesting, don't write poetry about yourself. Not even for yourself. As, poetry, unless it's coupled with wisdom, is a narcissistic task. Of selfishly delving deep into one's own things. Selfishly drawing out a portrait---getting more and more shallow--of you the artist.

If you cannot, by any means, relate to the world around you, don't write a single verse. Poetry, if about oneself, must be tainted with self-denial. It must be tainted by doubt, self reflection. It must peer into the failings---not the greatness. And if you do write a story of greatness, make sure you build a hero. Maybe a Byronic Hero, but a hero nonetheless to avoid the pathology of narcissism that poetry entails for the average writer.

Singing of love is a lute's charm, yet if it is not truly love? Why sing of it? If it is the same tired failure, of relationships failing because of one's own desire... then why write of it? Write rather of your failing toward your lover. That is a poem I haven't heard many do.

The Poem is an observation of the world around you. It is the decisive exploration of a thought. A poem is not a rambling of how great you are. Or how misunderstood. Rather, poetry ought to be---if it's well done---about something entirely new and alien, something wholly not of yourself. If it's to be done right, the poem should divert to conversations happening in the real world. As they relate to you, maybe. But, not simply your relation to yourself. You self-esteem.

The true poet is the one who draws forth wisdom, and relates it. A poem has the energy of an equation being solved, and wise men are the ones who get pleasure from it. For, to the average manchild and womanchild this involves work. Very unpopular, they'd rather the receding mess that is modern poetry, and obey the rule of self indulgence. "I, too, can be successful. I, too, if my words are pretty enough, can make it in this world." The ends are certain. It is the end of success, fame, affluence. It is not the ends of truth or learning or joy.

For this, the poet of modern day needs to put down the pen, as Coleridge said to Charles Lamb. For it is an asp's bite, driving oneself into the bitter revilings of narcissism. And so is true for any act of written word. Every word you write ought to be to succumbed to the world around you... not the world as it exists within your mind. That is true art.