What Is Poetry?

A poser indeed. Better to frame the question differently: what is Life? Any way both questions are posers that would make any listener to quiver before he finds an answer

- P. Raja

There can’t be one answer for everyone has an answer. And that does not solve the problem. Problem continues to remain a problem. No Alexander can cut this Gordian knot. It would be a futile venture.

Dr. Samuel Johnson once faced the poser. No gentleman would be a hypocritical poseur. But he didn’t hesitate even for a second. He confessed, “If you ask me I do not know. If you do not ask me I know.” As readers, if we read between the lines of the great champ of Literature, we can easily understand how powerfully he had used words to say that poetry is invisible and can only be felt like ‘wind’. Rather ‘breeze’ would be an apt word.

If poetry is feeling, then it should mean, poetry can be written only if the poet has a feel for his chosen subject, and the subject too has a feel for the poet. It is the subject matter that calls for a poet, a genuine one at that, inspires him and goads him to give shape to his thoughts on paper. This is where poetasters fail, and poets succeed and the ‘poem’ worthy the name is born.

“All is grist to the writer’s mill,” they say. May be true. But it all depends upon how fertile, how creative and how different he is from the run-of-the mill poets.