Each 21 March, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) celebrates World Poetry Day.

The Thammasat University Library owns many books containing and analyzing poetry.

There are many ways to define the noun poetry, which derives from an ancient Greek term meaning I create:

• A literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature.
• Poetry, literature that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm.
• Poetry, the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.
• Poetry is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content.
• Poetry definition is – metrical writing: verse.
• A poem is a collection of spoken or written words that expresses ideas or emotions in a powerfully vivid and imaginative style.
• There is no single definition of poetry, but you can learn how to recognize it when you see it and identify the greatest poets.

If we look at what is generally considered to be great poetry, even if we do not always understand it, we may get more comfortable with identifying poetry when we see it, and deciding what we like. For some TU students, their favorite poems are the lyrics of pop or rock songs that they listen to. Here are some thoughts on poetry:

• The crown of literature is poetry.

Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism (1888) “Count Leo Tolstoi”.

• Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Aristotle, Poetics (335) 1451b 6.

• Of the many definitions of poetry, the simplest is still the best: ‘memorable speech’.

W. H. Auden, introduction to The Poet’s Tongue (1935), p. v.

• All poetry is misrepresentation.

Jeremy Bentham, An Aphorism attributed to him according to John Stuart Mill

• By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman, or the charlatan. In other words, it forfeits its own evolutionary potential. For what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is precisely the gift of speech. Poetry is not a form of entertainment and in a certain sense not even a form of art, but it is our anthropological, genetic goal. Our evolutionary, linguistic beacon.

Joseph Brodsky, his opening remarks as United States Poet Laureate in October, 1991.

• Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

Edmund Burke, Memoir of the life and character of Edmund Burke by James Prior.

• Poetry is man’s rebellion against being what he is.

James Branch Cabell, Jurgen, A Comedy of Justice (1919).

• Our poetry now is the realization that we possess nothing. Anything therefore is a delight (since we do not possess it) and thus need not fear its loss.

John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings, “Lecture on Nothing” (1959).

• Poetry, therefore, we will call Musical Thought.

Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship (1840), 3.

• A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.

René Char, as quoted in The French-American Review (1976)

• …poetry = the best words in their best order.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talk (12 July 1827).

• Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.

Denis Diderot, On Dramatic Poetry (1758).

• Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

T. S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919).

• Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836), Ch. 8; Emerson ascribed this to Plato but it is actually a paraphrasing by Emerson of two quotations from Plato and Aristotle.

• Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

Gustave Flaubert, letter to Madame Louise Colet (14 August 1853).

• I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

Robert Frost, Conversations on the Craft of Poetry (1959); often quoted as “Poetry is what gets lost in translation”.

• If there’s no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money.

Robert Graves, speech at London School of Economics (6 December 1963).

• All that is worth remembering in life, is the poetry of it.

William Hazlitt, Lectures on the English Poets (1818) Lecture I, “On Poetry in General”.

• Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out … and perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

A. E. Housman, The Name and Nature of Poetry (1933).

UNESCO definition

The United Nations website states:

Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings. Poetry is the mainstay of oral tradition and, over centuries, can communicate the innermost values of diverse cultures.

In celebrating World Poetry Day, March 21, UNESCO recognizes the unique ability of poetry to capture the creative spirit of the human mind.

A decision to proclaim 21 March as World Poetry Day was adopted during UNESCO’s 30th session held in Paris in 1999.

One of the main objectives of the Day is to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their communities.

The observance of World Poetry Day is also meant to encourage a return to the oral tradition of poetry recitals, to promote the teaching of poetry, to restore a dialogue between poetry and the other arts such as theatre, dance, music and painting, and to support small publishers and create an attractive image of poetry in the media, so that the art of poetry will no longer be considered an outdated form of art, but one which enables society as a whole to regain and assert its identity.

Further background information is offered:

Held every year on 21 March, World Poetry Day celebrates one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity. Practiced throughout history – in every culture and on every continent – poetry speaks to our common humanity and our shared values, transforming the simplest of poems into a powerful catalyst for dialogue and peace…

World Poetry Day is the occasion to honour poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals, promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, foster the convergence between poetry and other arts such as theatre, dance, music and painting, and raise the visibility of poetry in the media.  As poetry continues to bring people together across continents, all are invited to join in.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)