For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.
John Drinkwater
So it is in poetry. All we ask is that the mood recorded shall impress us as having been of the kind that exhausts the imaginative capacity; if it... →
But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.
If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.
It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse.
Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way.
To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is... →
Any long work in which poetry is persistent, be it epic or drama or narrative, is really a succession of separate poetic experiences governed into a... →
The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that... →
We recognise in the finished art, which is the result of these conditions, the best words in the best order - poetry; and to put this essential... →