personal notes, 3/22/04

[novapsyche]

Poetry is really a type of energy transference. Basically, the poet is trying to 1) recreate a past feeling of his or her own or 2) create an altogether new feeling in the reader. Either way, the poet is attempting to engender a lived sensation in the reader.

The only means by which the poet can do this is through language, primarily the word on the page. Words themselves are filled with a type of energy of their own, by the fact that they are automatically associated with tones. Even upon sight, words transfer their tones to the inner ear; they're instantly transduced from visual images into sound.

The most successful poems seem to possess their own inner store of energy, a faintly felt lifeforce that is captured in the rhythm or cadence of the piece. But that rhythm in metrical pieces is so regular that those poems seem to lack this intrinsic energy. The excellent metrical poems combine time signature with inflection and meaning. This collusion of sense and sound produces (or reproduces) a feeling in the reader that is both familiar and novel, simple yet profound.

Comments

[javina.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

[gbdances.livejournal.com]

I like this a great deal. And interestingly enough, the way that you've said it has, in a word, the very quality you are describing as necessary to successful poetry --- resonance. Not an echo (which could be described as merely a shadow or reflection of an original sound), but rather a consciousness awareness of the overtones (and undertones), the sub- and supra-auditory frequencies that are sounded with the issuance of each note.

Brava :)