What Friendship Means.

[Fang]

Poetry is an expression of someone's feelings, doesn't mean if someone writes about violence they are violent people or messed up! I have read poetry about a child's abuse, very violent words used, terrible things done to the child... but doesn't mean the author was violent...they were sending a message. Poetry does not always have to be about love, it is the way a poet gets their message across in lyrical way.

I fully agree. Poetry is the writer's thoughts or emotions being put into words. It is used to convey a message of any sort.

One of the beautiful things about poetry is in the way the writer can use simple strings of words to move an audience. It can convey thoughts, take us on a journey, or help us see into the eyes of another. One simple poem can mean so many things to many people. While a book shows us [for the most part] one path, a poem has a seemingly endless string of paths that can lead audience members. It can mean something different to everyone. Poetry is as vast and as endless as our own emotions.

[Stands Alone]

Pfft I'm a totally nutter, so don't base your sanity off mine

How about a poem about tribbles? Live long and prosper!

If we were not Klingons
We would love Tribbles
But it has been ions
Since we had such troubles!

[docat]

If we were not Klingons
We would love Tribbles
But it has been ions
Since we had such troubles!

TRIBBLES ROCK!!!!

Hey, now that's good.

[Stands Alone]

TRIBBLES ROCK!!!!

Hey, now that's good.

They're so cute & furry you gotta love em!

[docat]

Poetry is as vast and as endless as our own emotions.

You put it all so well, but I wanted to add one thing. Poetry can also be as endless as our own emotions AND imaginations. I think some poets can effectively write about things that they have never experienced before as well.

The Confessionist poets of the 1950s were awesome. I was first exposed to them in college and never could get enough. I have a definite liking there. The Beat poets from the same era were BRILLIANT!!

When I think of the best poetry out there, I think of the ones where every word is succinct. Every word has its weight and purpose.

I taught my eldest poetry when she was like 4, and she loved William Blake's Innocence and Experience poems. She would recite "The Tyger" It starts out like this:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

She memorized all 6 stanzas, which was pretty long for a 4 year old to learn, and when we had dinner parties, she would entertain with this poem, using her fingers as claws and grand gestures as only a 4 yr old could design.

At any rate at one of these events, she got to the end of the first stanza and broke her recitation stance and turned to me and said, "Mama, what kind of a tree is a symmetry?"

Of course, the question was so precious. We all laughed, and from then on, she decided she wanted to be PAID for further poetry recitations...and she demanded artistic control. All innocence was gone.

[Fang]

They're so cute & furry you gotta love em!

Love 'em till they fill up your ship so you can't get anything done. If a Tribble met a Mogwai, we'd all be in trouble... though I'm starting to think a few people round here are are of the Gremlin category

[Fang]

You put it all so well, but I wanted to add one thing. Poetry can also be as endless as our own emotions AND imaginations. I think some poets can effectively write about things that they have never experienced before as well.

The Confessionist poets of the 1950s were awesome. I was first exposed to them in college and never could get enough. I have a definite liking there. The Beat poets from the same era were BRILLIANT!!

When I think of the best poetry out there, I think of the ones where every word is succinct. Every word has its weight and purpose.

I taught my eldest poetry when she was like 4, and she loved William Blake's Innocence and Experience poems. She would recite "The Tyger" It starts out like this:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

She memorized all 6 stanzas, which was pretty long for a 4 year old to learn, and when we had dinner parties, she would entertain with this poem, using her fingers as claws and grand gestures as only a 4 yr old could design.

At any rate at one of these events, she got to the end of the first stanza and broke her recitation stance and turned to me and said, "Mama, what kind of a tree is a symmetry?"

Of course, the question was so precious. We all laughed, and from then on, she decided she wanted to be PAID for further poetry recitations...and she demanded artistic control. All innocence was gone.

The imagination is an incredible thing. To quote the wonderful Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka, "There is no life I know to compare to pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be".

Your daughter is awesome. I probably would have asked the same question at that age. Growing up, I was a Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson and Geoffrey Chaucer fanatic. They went quite over my head until I was older, but definitely had a great influence on how I see the world.

I have a thing for nonsensical poems, satirical pieces, and classics. Ones that constantly make you think and view the world differently. One of my [other] favorite things about poems is when you can pick it up several times, and each time you get a different thing out of it.

[docat]

The imagination is an incredible thing. To quote the wonderful Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka, "There is no life I know to compare to pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be".

Your daughter is awesome. I probably would have asked the same question at that age. Growing up, I was a Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson and Geoffrey Chaucer fanatic. They went quite over my head until I was older, but definitely had a great influence on how I see the world.

I have a thing for nonsensical poems, satirical pieces, and classics. Ones that constantly make you think and view the world differently. One of my [other] favorite things about poems is when you can pick it up several times, and each time you get a different thing out of it.

Oh wow, Chaucer! You had a similar upbringing in literature. All three of them grew up loving the creative spirit that growing up with great prose and poetry can give. We also had a somewhat modern copy of Spenser's Fairie Queene, which all three of the girls LOVED. They didn't understand allegory...but they connected with the Redcrosse knight and Una and all the Arthurian tales while they were still in primary school.

One thing that my girls still thank me for is that my husband and I put good books in their hands when they were at an impressionable age.

[Fang]

Books are a valuable tool in the hands of youth. Literature in all forms helps us broaden our minds, and poetry allows us to dabble in the minds of others. It shows us that while the world may tell us to grow up, we never have to lock away our imaginations. The world is how we create it and how we wish to perceive it.

Poetry teaches us that it's okay to share our thoughts, our emotions, desires, and dreams. They don't have to rhyme, make sense, or even follow a completely linear fashion. And it's okay for people to walk away from the story we have to tell with an idea seemingly unrelated to the point we were expressing. If people can walk away from your work with an emotional response, then you've done good.