Poetry is the manifestation of what we deem important. What we choose to filter down to paper. Poetry is powerful, because it affects and is affected. Just like souls. Just like relationships. Just like an entity. An entity of us. Us, as, an, ego.  :-\

point?

Quite surprised this isn't a more lively discussion. When will the poet dismantle his weapons system of quantifying and qualifying the world long enough to gander past his own mirror, and see his (or her) own reflection?

Matt,

You must be British. Only a Brit would be so cocky...and depending on how you take that comment will depend on how I record my conclusion.

You are a study in and of yourself.

Thanks,
Joe

I like poetry where the ego places itself in service to the poem.  this doesn't mean that the poet disappears.  Paradoxically, the poet's self (more than just ego) comes through more strongly. 

That stuff about 'just like souls' maybe got in the way, Joe.

milner

I don't believe anything is banned from poetry, which makes it "the glory, jest and riddle of the world," to misapply Alex Pope. 

Soul? You all really have to get over the use of that word. It describes what no other words, or combination of words can even attempt to dissect. I understand the cliche nature of it, and all...which is, why, hence, therefore, this is in the discussion section. We must overcome dialectical nonsense. Because that's all it is.

Curiosity will kill me, Milner. You have a persistent distaste for "soul"...I understand all the logical, poetic reasons for avoidance, but what lies deeper?

Matt, you continue to make no sense. Prove to me that it doesn't exist and then we can have a discussion. I can't prove it does, you can't prove it doesn't. Why would you bring up such a trite, trivial, meaningless point?

If you're talking of 'soul' as some kind of entity, Joe, I can respect that you believe in its existence. But it is a matter of faith, not a tangible reality, and to bring such a religious concept into a discussion on poetry doesn't seem to be sensible. Might as well bring in elves and goblins and ghosts, and gods, for that matter. All the above can be welcomed in poems, but I don't think it serves to bring them into a general discussion on the nature of poetry or poets. The other problem, of course, is that 'soul' can be taken to mean so many different things and is therefore imprecise if it isn't defined for the purpose in hand. If it is being used in the emotional sense, as is common with musicians, or any other of its meanings, then it should be so defined. So this comes round again to my objections to its lazy use in poetry, when the context doesn't make clear which of its many meanings is intended.

Cheers

milner

Lorca and Neruda and Bly talked about poetry having "duende," meaning something like spirit or soul (or maybe the ghost in the machine?).  For the sake of arg, I'll grant there is no such thing as soul, but I also assert that whatever people have that makes them alive, some poems have too.  That's my concern in all this huggermugger:  to rescue living poems from the workshop stew (and sometimes from the clutches of their makers -- including me).

Rick

Using the word soul as an entity is not my intent, nor my belief. We are entities, and the soul a part of us. As far as the argument for tangibility vs. intangibility, one might also conclude that gravity does not exist because we cannot see it, hear it, but we can only feel it. Now--we have found a way to measure the effects of gravity but we have not found a mechanism to measure soul--therefore people well-grounded in western conventions of thought tend to shy away from anything to do with soul. The mere fact that it is not proveable, nor disprovable, puts everyone against the use of soul in the same faith-based quandary as myself. There is no proof that a soul exists, or ever has, but on that flip side, we can see that it is impossible to say existence is quantifiably untrue. As you say, one may bring into the poem something of goblins, ghosts and the like, however I find it an unfair comparison because the dialectical nonsense of both are not equal with regard to their literature "weight." If it is easier for you then, dispense with the dialectical nonsense and inject your own word...one that fits more closely with the conventions of thought so well taught to children ever since they've learned to walk, talk and breathe. Perhaps, something along the lines of "mind..."? Indeed, it is true that several, if not a baker's dozen of poets in the past, have used soul as in interchange for "mind"...in an futile effort to flush out the dichotomy of existence...the desires of the flesh, and the prison of the mind. Do I digress? When do you clearly see a word and jump to the nearest available conclusion in your mind? One's mind?

Well said, JL.

Scratch dialectical nonsense--"metaphysical nonsense"

Maybe it's otherness that's the operative word here:  poems that surprise the hell out of the writer as much as the readers.  Poems that "smell of the lamp," show a lot of intention and mental fiddling, risk dying on the page.  So do poems that just express the poet's mood du jour, or settle the poet's grudge do jour.

Dude, you need a new MO. I'm sure, you know this.

Not in this thread--cmon, let's squabble more over semantics, I luvvit

Well said Joe-

EB