That answer might sound a little convoluted, but I hope I helped answer your question.

Since I am a poet, your post resonated with me. It really did. And thanks for sharing ideas.

What a coincidence: T.S. Eliot is also one of my favorite poets–he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. And the “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” also changed my life. Wow!

I find it really hard to answer, however, who my favorite poet is. One thing I can say for sure: it is certainly not me. Not at all. However, I love to read the poems written by the following:

Pablo Neruda, Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, Robert Frost, Walter Savage Landor, Shakespeare, The English Romantics (Shelley, Keats, Byron), John Milton, etc.

Truth be told, there are so many others it would fill volumes.

As a result, I don’t have a “favorite” poet; nor can I compare one poem against another.

I like poems for different reasons and like to play with poetry. For me, these great poets are mystics and prophets.(Reading their works has enriched my life, truly. I believe it too.)

And I feel I am better off for having read about their metaphors and images. I also think reading poetry can make you a better, more humane person and it exercises your mind.

For example, reading Joseph Brodsky and Derek Walcott swept me off my feet. Wow.
Reading such wonderful poets transports you to a different plane. Out of this world. Cheers!

I have been making poems all my life
But more so recently

What got me thinking about what makes a poem
Is a comment that I made on another blog.

The blog post I was responding to
concerned finding our reason for being alive

Several days after posting my comment
The blog owner posted a reply
and later sent me email
Saying it was not permissible
to post poems as comments

What I wrote does not rhyme
It basically presents ideas
but it is broken up into “stanzas”

It seems to me to be
neither fish nor fowl

I choose to agree
with the blog owner
and think of my comment
as a poem of sorts.

But why?

I’ve broken up my comment here too
Does that make this a poem as well?

Thanks for any thoughts you might have
Yamabuki

This is the comment, modified slightly, that I posted:

I’ve heard that in some tribal cultures
There will come a wise person
To speak to the soul
Of the child in the womb

The child is asked
Why it has chosen to take birth
What is its reason
For coming into this world

Sometimes this is all
Other times further dialog ensues
Concerning the reasons and rhymes
Of this new life coming towards birth

Years later when the child
Is starting to understand life
The wise person approaches the child
And begin a dialog

Or more accurately
Returns to the dialog
That started when the child
Was still in the womb

This was not done for me
Probably it was not done for you
Still something in us longs to know
Why we are here

What gives meaning to our life
Why keep going
And many more
Good questions all.

I believe that the answers
Always lie within
There are different ways
Of finding why we are here

Meditation quites the mind
But it can also help find answers
Dreams too
Can aid our search

Standing on a bridge
Waiting to jump
Looking for answers
This is the knife’s edge way

Cutting through
To the center
Going to the heart
To see who you really are

Now look to see if you can
Look even deeper
There is always more
Wisdom within us all

Yamabuki

This post was mentioned on Twitter by ILoveAuthors: RT @fuelyourwriting Where Does Poetry Begin?: Any person who is above the age of five, and quite a few under, kno… http://bit.ly/bawWLx…

It’s certainly true that a reader has to approach a poem with an open mind. Using feeling in an analysis is one of the most difficult thing for burgeoning students of poetry to do, but it is vitally necessary.

As for my favorite poem, that’s definitely “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. That poem changed my life.

I think the trick to understanding poetry is keeping an open mind. Those shut off to the world of personal expression and artistic creation most likely won’t have the patience for a poetry — just as they most likely won’t have the patience for other forms of art that are based in feeling just as much as thought, such as abstract expressionism in painting for example.

Thanks for sharing!

What’s everyone’s favorite poet or poem?