What is Poetry? 10 observations about the art - (Dana Gioia)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 มิ.ย. 2024
- This video is the first in a series of introductory talks on the art of poetry. They explore how to read, study, and enjoy poetry. The most ancient art, poetry emerged before writing as a form of song--speech shaped for music effect. It uses every means by which language communicates to create a particular meaning and effect. By studying poetry you'll understand how to use the full power and range of language. Poetry also reminds us that the physical sound and rhythm of words are parts of their meaning. The form a statement takes becomes part of its meaning. In this video I make 10 observations about poetry formed over a lifetime of reading and writing it.
For more videos on poetry you can subscribe to my TH-cam channel here: / @danagioia6943
Twitter: @DanaGioiaPoet
"It makes individuals understand common things and it uses pleasure to instruct." sent shivers down my spine. So good.
The way you're teaching is making poetry make a lot of sense to me
Among the many fine points you elucidate, I must heartedly agree that the musicality of the language itself, carried into the music of an artful reading, is central to accessing the 'magic', or 'mild hypnosis' as you put it. With some experience introducing poetry to people in the air force (predominantly technically trained and who on average tend more towards thinking poetry is fairy dust for softheads or nonsense for nobody), I am amazed at how often they can be completely stunned by a reading of a poem they were just balking on the page.
Having "taught" American Poetry to Japanese university students, my biggest problem has been conveying the concept of "meter"--starting with iambs and trochees--as Japanese is a relatively monotone language and its traditional poetry depends not on emphasized syllables, but on a syllable-count per line, such as 5-7-5 in Haiku or 5-7-5-7-7 in Tanka. In fact, it's hard to get across the concept of a "syllable" to them, since (with one exception) every letter of hiragana and katakana is a syllable. (I hope this makes sense!)
And conversely, to explain to English speaking people that English haiku is not 5-7-5 "syllables": it creates haiku that are considerably longer than the Japanese version.
Can you please say more about this? What would be a more equivalent syllable count in English? @@TimGreig
Aren’t haikus ways cooler sounding in Japanese because of the lack of stressed syllables tho. I’ve always wondered
Way cooler*
This video explains what poetry is and reveals to me why using poetry daily in my classroom has resulted in higher reading scores.
WHY IS THIS SO UNDERRATED
The movie “The Outsiders” was my first introduction to this poem as a child. It resonated so strongly with me based on the character in the movie that embraced it….I was a child and now at 45…it is the ONLY poem I have every memorized. I never memorized my own work… At 45…this work…puts into words my entire life story….it follows my life story….that we are innocent but for a moment…that we pure and then we are heartbroken grievers of puirity….
Wow.. this has been one of the most fascinating and inspiring videos I have watched. I feel as though a whole new dimension has opened. Thank you
I am pleased it found the right viewer in you.
Thank you, Dana. Your content is fascinating. I could listen to your voice all day - it makes your videos so relaxing to listen to and that helps make them even more interesting and memorable.
The best video about poetry I have watched so far. And thanks for your slow pronunciation. Me, as a non native english speaker, could understand every word you said! Thaks a lot!
You're very welcome!
I feel like the top of my head has been lifted off. Many, many thanks
Insightfull beyond poetry. Thank you
Mr Gioia: until yesterday I had never heard of you but I was listening to Morten Lauridsen's setting of your poem Prayer and was immediately deeply moved, having lost a child myself. Thank you. Thank you. It brought me much comfort.
I'm happy that you came to my work through the astonishing music of Morten Lauridsen. But I'm sad that we share such a deep sorrow. It never goes away, but music and poetry do give us some comfort and clarity.
Thank you very much for this channel and this video, specifically.
I am from México. I am learning so much from you.
Muchas gracias
I love poetry but seldom read new poetry because great poetry is so rare.
@@_t_w_s True, that.
I agree. And………I wonder why that is.
I thought I was the only one
The best poetry to ever be created is the psalms from the Holy Bible. God created everything with His breath and His words are alive, poetry comes from HIM.
Try the book of proverbs and Ecclesiastes in the Holy Bible
Just discovered you in watching your session on Wallace Stevens. You remind me of the best university lecturer I had - not flashy, just carefully reasoned and organized information delivered in such a way I can understand. No fireworks, no jokes, just information well ordered.
Great video and very helpful. thank you❤
Thanks for sharing this lecture. It is so interesting that you used the Chinese imperial examination as the background. Poetry was an integral part of politics of imperial China. Although poetry was not able to reduce the brutality of politics at the court, it did added considerable aesthetic significance to the brutal politics just like the Shakespearean dramas. I made a few videos about poems composed by a king from the 10th century China. Poetry is absolutely essential for human being!!
This is truly a fantastic video!
Thank you Dana. Could you please make a video on your thoughts about the Postmodernists? I'd like to know your take on their repudiation of lyricism and their desire to remove the "I" from poems. I've been writing for many years and only recently discovered them. They've thrown me for a loop, into a sort of crisis. Please!
Should poetry exist? If so, whose? What role does the reader play in qualifying the work(s)? What about canon? The gatekeepers? What will AI do to poetry and poetics? If poetry is called poetry, is it poetry for others? Isn't poetry just a product of poetics? Does a static poetics, and thus a static poetry, exist? Whose art? Whose interpretation? Whose world? What function does the context play in the reception of language, the qualification of 'art'? Does art exist? Should it? Why and why not? Is art inevitable? Is miscommunication, exclusion, needed for one thing to be not the other thing? If art is inherently exclusive, what should we exclude? People? Or conventions? Or contexts outside of the now? Please answer these questions...we are trying to find the answer...
Poetry is you you you you
Yes yes you teaching poetry
From the core of my soul thank you
Your words paint the world with beauty
i just love ya man!
Wow. Thank you.
I just read your article about the importance and purpose of poetry in Christianity and I gotta say: Holy mole, can you write!
I’ve been reading the Bible and struggling with the poetic language but now I see it differently. ❤
I'm pleased that you found the article, which I have expanded a bit into a small booklet with Wiseblood Books. I felt the subject was important both for Christians and poets. Poetry isn't a decorative kind of speech. It is the best language we have to describe fundamental kinds of spiritual and visionary experience.
Incredible start of the series. Thank you very much!
Poetry
If spoken or writ to charm, entice, console,
Does poetry not coerce, or subtly control?
And this control, in what does it consist?
Some poems appear to ramble, simply list.
Yet “Here” we are; out “There,” the Universe;
So shaped are we, so constricted, isn’t our curse
That, at best, poems help discipline our souls
In face of comic upset, untoward disasters?
The Cosmos is boss, not we the starry masters;
For civility to cohere, deep song outrolls…
Awesome discussion! Greetings from the Philippines!
Poetry: is life.
Never heard a man talk so much about poetry: anyhow, nice detailed video, thanks.
I will take that as a compliment.
Thank you so much Dana.
Thanks again. I've returned to relisten.
This is fantastic ... Thanks for the upload!
Very well said. Thank you! To change our lives for the better.
I found this lecture approach to the magic pedantic and depressing. Bring us into the poem by your being swept up by it and it's sweeping us up with that comment alone which furthers our captivation!
Poetry is basically wasabi, then. Or is it that wasabi is a form of natural poetry? Either way, this channel is transforming my ability to understand poetry. I had heretofore found it to be a muddled and annoying transgression against prose. But I am starting to lowkey understand it. Will continue to cultivate this.
Oh dear. Now I'm just going to have to find something else clever to say about poetry.
Very nicely done.
That was really insightful, thank you. Not sure about poetry being the first art form given the advent of paintings (cave art) 10s of thousands of years before.
I was nocked down when I was a boy of 14, broke both arms one elbow one Wrist & my right tibia & fibia so I didn't return to school, I had severe PTSD & while in hospital in traction I received Morphine for obvious extreme pain but once I was getting weaned off the morphine I became very angry & aggressive & agitated having severe nightmares constantly so very frustrated unable to turn or move & cried myself to sleep many many times so my aunt bought me & personal cassette player with a door's tape so I was listening to this to escape from my own mind that was a prison of horrible thoughts & pain so unbeknownst to me at the time these songs hard wired my Brain different to a regular 14 year old child, it took 8 months in cast for my elbow and over a year to have my cast
Took below my knee so I couldn't do anything but sit & watch everyone do everything I couldn't so was always frustrated & unable to sleep as I was full of energy & desire to engage & be part of the fun with everyone but obviously couldn't so I developed a split personality a dark angry aggressive sleep & fun deprived child so being so frustrated constantly totally & entirely consumed completely & no one could understand so I started to write & watch BBC open University at night & just wrote my thoughts & feelings no previous knowledge of poetry other than nursery rhymes & songs so it's been 27 years since my accident & didn't even notice at the time but after years of going back to the writings when struggling or depressed PTSD I noticed they actually heal & help me to understand myself better so I now notice that I have a special flows with words by combining past experiences in things I wrote with present experiences I have become a poet I would like to offer one or many as proof that my young mind escaped & was bursting with Raw Emotions not coordinated or constructed as poems until years later I found out who the door's are & that the singer was a poet so I unwittingly picked up on this as that was my only escape from my prison mind of frustration & pain begging for more pain relief but they obviously had to wean me off my young mind didn't understand I saw all other patients get their pain relief but the were terminal or in palliative care obviously I didn't understand this then either but I honest thought because I'm younger I was being punished for lashing out verbal abuse because they took away my pain relief only now using my own words from all those year of writing do I understand the bigger picture & that my young mind was blind to see but written words find a flow if you just write no matter what about just do it please as these words written become like a built in memory bank that never stops evolving I subscribe to powerful quotes & possotive affirmations & now understand that by doing this I have my own style of poetry & memory I basically know all my stuff by heart so it has shape my life for the better in every way now I'm a word play addicted I love it so anyone thinking this man's video explanation isn't true or a bit far fetched then your wrong words have unique power & naturally want to flow better together so now words flow from me through me & because I read & write constantly I've become a poet I'm my own right without trying or premeditatly knowing this would be the what happened & my memory is like no one else I know I can read a book upside down & backwards like in a mirror image & how can that be possible it's because of the way words can offer a personalised perspective & perception to & for someone who couldn't possibly understand at the time word play now is a major influence & best teacher I've ever known so write no matter how small or trivial just write & unlock your potential to allow you to understand yourself & the world better so that you can cancel see the that the Glass half full & Glass half empty & if you believe you can or believe you can't both statements are the truth & poetry reveals all truth uniquely even from the perspective & personal perception of its creator
The pen is mightier than the Sword & the Truth will set you free if you read or write it you will believe it I promise!
"it's one love to the world from Bonnie Scotland"🙏🏴🍀👌
wow, I can't believe I actually read all of that! I wasn't going to but I felt the Holy Spirit pushing me to and I'm so grateful I did. thanks so much for sharing your experience Bonnie, I actually see myself moving towards writing poetry more often now, I used to when I was much younger but all of a sudden I stopped, but I strongly believe its the next step in life for me, I'm quite young and surprising been through quite a lot in life but looking back now I believe God allowed me to go through certain experiences and trails so I can write about it today! Thanks again for sharing your story, much appreciated God Bless.
Excellent. An excellent introduction.
Very good.insightful
Greatly presented 🎉
Great work.
Influence of poetry to the modern world !
Would this explain or could it be applied to why we remember lyrics of pop songs? My son knows the words to all of his favorite songs. I can’t think of a Beatles song for which I don’t know the words.
I have rewatched your videos a few times now. They are wonderful! I am at a crossroads in my own creative writing. I find myself drawn to narrative it at the same time to pithy, impactful verse. Has the novel truly replaced the narrative poetry of centuries ago?
I'm scared of poetry,
its breath of sound.
With its meanings hidden,
it lets me down.
Very informative video 📝📑📑
Wow!
What a great video. Thanks. 👍
I've always wanted to create poetry. Unfortunately I've always been a bit intimidated by the idea. In my heart though I may be a poet.
Don’t give up! Get a notebook, write down some of your observations or thoughts. Pay attention to the words, especially how they sound after you reread them. Play around with the order and presentation of words and see how it reads again and again!
@@eosa Thank you. I need to do that. I appreciate the encouragement.
Just remember out of quantity comes quality. I can write a poem about almost anything if someone pays me. I'm 29 now, but as far as something from the heart that's few and far in between
Alongside writing, also read a lot of poetry. It is a craft you need to master. Read and write a lot and you will be surprised how much you improve day by day.
Thank you for this, professor. What would you say to Eliot's distinction, in his Introduction to a collection of Kipling, that not all "verse" is "poetry"? Apologies if you covered this and I missed it.
I’m
great video, but to be fair, i believe music is just as ancient of an art form as poetry. no one is to say which is more ancient than the other
Yes. Poetry and song were a single art in ancient cultures. Our modern distinction didn't exist then. There would probably also have been purely instrumental music for dance and procession, performed as folk music is, without scores. But song, solo or choral, was the main form of music. We know more about song because so many texts survive whereas there was little or no musical notation.
Language in performance is poetry when the audience accepts it as poetry
Me cambio todo....
I recommend everyone to listen to Mahmoud Darwish-Tribute to Edward Said. It’s on TH-cam. It’s beautiful
It isn't an example of great poetry
@@binukj7970exactly... Thank you...
I read it somewhere.Is the purpose of rhythm in poetry is to make it singable?
Conclusion
A poem must be singable or hummable even if it is free verse. In order to be singable,a poem must have rhythm, even if not rhyme.Free-verse gives you some liberty from the constraints of a rigid structure of poetry but it still must have an inherent rhythm. It is not simply that you write prose and break the lines at arbitrary points.
iM watching this for an assignment
11
mr goioa
The poem' ~ an unworked puzzle. Found' in the lost parallels, of void' and mind. Pieces laid down, in snug' fit. To complete an off-slight thought, edge to' end. Be altering' of-it, for life's reason. Or Where-by' acknowledged briefly, short levity. As such' produces, accompaning' grin. Wandering aimless' by vacant rooms. What-so are imagined, being left to time' and pen. After mastery' of such resident's. Hastens' to decide, upon it's boundary. And final arrival is cordially' noted. When show' of prepared' stage, shall be. And
thus' the play begins, - in
Rhyme' - mystery' to be puzzled. Finding lost' in corridors, of the picturesque' mind. A concept' placed in flow, joining' simular
bit. Completing an' off-slight musing, from end' to end. Be' of-it' molded, for life's season. Or just' to play Levity's humor. With
brevity, and an' occasional' spin. Wandering aimless' by vacant rooms. Where pondered' images
are left written. With time's
falling sand, and blotting' of pen. Acheiving such mastery' in literary residency. When soon' it must
be decided, upon quote's boundary. To find arrival cordially' noted, in diligent' offering. Revealing' with artistic license, what each' implement of line, begins.
Poetftry are WORDS the DRAW ATTENTION TO THEMSELVES
By using upper case letters presumably.
Walt Whitman said"Writing poetry in free verse is like playing tennis with the net down"
Asking what is poetry is like asking what is language...poetry is the birthplace of the modern human being..before alphabets, before literacy, before and cohesive complex language at all there was poetry...chant's and sounds words and not yet words ..rhythms rfelecting themseleves and finding new one with cermony and ritual predating the thought and knowledge creating it in incantation....poetry is at the center not only of what it is to be human but how humanity exists.
He speaks much about poetry without even mentioning Sanskrit in which language poetry was first written
hey kids who wanted extra credit
I think you missed great poetry with long history is Tamil
Why would you delete my comment?
What did you write? Perhaps you can try to make the comment again.
With great respect but…!
… No, the oldest art as explained by Edward Gordon Craig was most probably “mime”…. Hunting stories or accounts of war - even comedy - clowning - as told by fire-lit dumb show long before proper verbal language was sophisticated enough to carry the same physical immediacy and intensity…
I believe many theatrical scholars have considered this to be probably the first art form…
Peace!
“Poetry reminds us that the physical shape of a word is always part of its meaning.” Example please. The poet here never gives any examples so his sweeping declarations have little persuasive value.
Something like this could be done of course. Emerson, I believe, argued that the word “breath”has its origin in the sound of breathing.
i enjoy reading my goioa but his speech pattern is annoying. im not 5
Sadly, now you’ve said that, it’s so obvious!
The stupidity of people is infinite… it’s never ending; the endless questions about nothing, the quest for nothing… we insult one and others intelligence daily with nonsense and nonsensicale questions.. please stop!
A reminder the God loves you and Jesus died for your sins💓 💓( not tryna force)
Grow up!
Have you grown up ! ... Hh sorry?
@@IonaGrave… Errr, no - you need to grow young - and get with the spirit:
Christ is intoned in the spirit and soul of practically every single poem spoken here in the English language.
Wake up… Christ is the absolute King to every great poet in the European continent for 2000 years. Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Webster, Marlowe, Donne, Herbert, Dante, Goethe, Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Rossetti DG, Rossetti C, Hopkins, Pound, T S Eliot, Auden, Heaney…
Get with the program and escape the dim, automaton, mass-programed hatred of Christ of this vile prosaic barbaric age that you seem to exhibit.
Every movement you can ever make is one either towards or away from God.