In tonights lecture we met with Professor Colangelo who spoke to us about “Voice and Verse: At the origins of contemporary poetry. ” Professor Colangelo started his talk with quotes from poets through out history. One thing that I realized while he was reading these quotes I realized that each poets voice and context carried.
Through all of the lectures we have attended I found this to be the one lecture where it was hard to pinpoint an exact origin of the subject matter. Poetry is a very subjective art form. There are no rules or standards to poetry. The way in which one area which we have learned about that there is no exact date in which an origin can be pinpointed. The reason being that poetry, as an art form can be viewed and interpreted very differently depending on who is reading the poem.
Professor Colangelo’s talk made me think about the idea that each and every person is a poet wether or not they chose to pursue the practice of writing poetry. Any form of expression in its self can be seen as a form of poetry. In some ways this blog post itself could be considered a poem. However, the practice of poetry itself is something that has been perfect and practiced by many great poets. Poetry, however, has no wrong or right approach. Poetry can rhyme, be short, have a rhythm, or can have many hidden meanings.
I think the idea of ones voice is the most important part of poetry. Ones voice is the tone in which they try to express their message or story within their poem. While the text itself could be the same, the tone in which the poem is read can completely change the meaning of the poem. Some poets such as Poe use a very dark voice to convey his message. Poe’s poems all are very complex and somewhat twisted. Poe leaves his readers with a chilling feeling after reading his poems. In contrast to Poe there are poets such as Shell Silverstein whose poems are geared towards a very different audience. Sblverstiens poems are written for children and can be read as almost a song. Silverstein takes very simple daily ideas and converts them into whimsical and light hearted stories. Silverstein’s poems are often memorized and reread by students in a class room setting as a way to introduce them into the practice of poems.
The final thought that stuck with me the most from the lecture is the idea that poetry is timeless. Poet and philosopher Bachelard introduced this idea of poetries timelessness. It stands on the idea that poetry is the coming together of many ideas into one moment. While it is hard to state that anything is timeless considering time is one of the factors in life which mankind has absolute no control over, the timelessness of poetry comes from the fact that the meaning behind certain poems are everlasting. One simple message that a poet wrote hundreds years ago could be read today and interpreted in the same way.