Anyone who writes poetry will tell you that it is more than a line, more than a literary device, and more than the sappy splashing of ideas on a page making an abstract idea emerge. Poetry is about being human. It is about emotions and language colliding on a page. Watch this TEDTalk on Why People Need Poetry. Pull out three things that he says that support the necessity of poetry. Explain what he says and then add one other reason that you think we need poetry. (Yes, I know some of you may not think we need poetry. Try anyway.)
Poetry is a form of literature that offers many benefits to individuals and society as a whole. In the TED Talk podcast about the importance and significance of poetry, Stephen Burt mentions that there are significant reasons as to why poetry is important. Poetry offers benefits to not just the writer, but the reader as well. Poetry is impactful and an important part of society because it allows for the expression of emotions, communication between people, and has an element of timeliness.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first attributes of poetry that Burt mentions in the TED Talk podcast is that poetry allows for the expression of emotions. Poetry allows for writers to convey various emotions and thoughts without having to explicitly state any intimate feelings. The expression of emotions in poetry is not of just a benefit to the writer, but also to the reader. Poetry allows for self-expression for the writer and self-reflection and thought for the reader. Poetry is often literature that is therapeutic in its power to encompass emotions.
Poetry also serves as a means of communication between people. Communication can occur between people of no similar interest and people who live in different continents through poetry. Poetry has an impact on the world because it is assessable and relatable to people all around the world. Poetry also serves to communicate the voice of a group of people. Burt mentions in the TED Talk that poetry can serve to be the voice of individuals if the reader is able to identify with the meaning of the poetry.
A significant aspect of poetry is its ability to remain timely. A reader can engage with poetry from the 1500’s as much as he or she could with contemporary poetry. Often times in poetry, the writer is trying to express emotions or portray a message to the reader. The themes and messages of poetry are often relatable across large time periods because poetry is often written to communicate. A significant aspect of the TED Talk was when Burt mentions that poetry is timely in its ability to connect the past, present, and future. Poetry is not just specific to one time period because it often expresses emotions and messages relatable to a broad spectrum of people and time.
Personally, I believe that poetry is important because it allows for the sharing and development of ideas. I believe that poetry often gives insight into the meaning of life. Through poetry, I believe that individuals may understand events, life, and emotions more. Overall, poetry allows individuals to share ideas through the writer’s perceptions of events. Poetry is a brave and strategic way for writers to share ideas with other people who may not have prior considered the writer’s point of view.
Poetry offers many benefits to writers and readers. Poetry allows for individuals to communicate and share ideas. A significant aspect of poetry is its ability to remain timely over a large timespan. Poetry also impacts a large number of diversified people. The sharing of ideas and communication that occurs in poetry is beneficial to society because society advances through the sharing and development of ideas.
As many teenage girls would tell you, poetry is a great way of expression emotion. However, poetry is more than that. It is important because it serves more than one purpose; more than one person. Anything and everything can be expressed within the expanse of a few stanzas. Raw emotion can make for some powerful poetry. Poetry is important because it serves as an emotional outlet. In a similar sense, poetry can be used to communicate between people. Regardless of barriers such as language or ethnicity, most poetry holds a universal truth. Poetry bonds people together through the agreement upon ideas or even through disagreement. Another reason Burt believes we need poetry is its ability to remain timeless. He quotes poems that despite being written many years ago remain important. This is because poetry is not a dependent on contemporary ideas. Written emotion is something that never fades. I believe people need poetry because there is hope in poetry. Reading something means that the author has gone on to live past what they wrote about. It shows that all things are merely temporary. For me, this is hopeful.
ReplyDeleteMcGregor, M. 2
One of the major themes throughout Stephen Burt’s speech is that poems can temporarily bring people together. He speaks about the poem The Garden by Rae Armantrout:
ReplyDelete“Armantrout shows me what it’s like to hear grave threats and moral dishonesty in the language of everyday life, and once she’s done that, I think she can show other people, women and men, what it’s like to feel that way and say to other people, women and men who feel so alienated or so threatened that they’re not alone.”
What Burt said here really made me believe that poetry might be more exciting than I thought it to be. Of the poems he presented this one was, honestly, the only one that stood out to me and that I actually enjoyed listening to. Here, Burt shows that poems are a link between groups of people; they give the perspectives of one person and share that perspective with the world. Yes, this message might be hidden behind the confusing symbols associated with the poem, but with Burt that seems to be the fun- uncovering the hidden messages.
The most interesting point brought up in Burt’s speech was that, “Poetry does seem to be especially good at certain things. For example, we are all going to die. Poetry can help us live with that.” When I first heard this in his speech I most definitely did not believe this because I, personally, would rather read a book than a poem. After getting through the majority of Burt’s speech I realized what he truly meant by this, which relates to the previous point I made. With the idea that poetry can help us live with death, Burt was saying that poems allow us to experience things that we may never get to and through reading a poem about, say, a place you want to visit, then you take away that memory and keep it as your own. Almost as though you visited that place yourself. So, poetry allows readers to cope with death in the sense that they can minimize their regrets through experiencing things from a poet’s eyes.
Another thing that I found interesting about the speech was that Burt, himself, speaks in a poetic manner. He takes long pauses between words, but he is usually not yet finished with the sentence. This stood out to me because he is a critic of poets and has been around them and has loved them for the majority of his life. Burt being able to speak as a poet writes is not easy to do, but it gave the speech a poetic feel which further enforced all the claims he made about poetry. This speaks to the necessity of poetry because Burt’s entire job is focused around interpreting and judging poems. Why would one man devote his career and pretty much his entire life to critiquing poems if they have no significance in everyday life?
A reason that I believe poetry is essential to human existence is that it gives humans an escape from reality, just as books do. At least for me, when I get upset at a friend or I need a little love story or some more action in my life I turn to reading, and whatever is read depends on the person. The reason poetry has not appealed to me is because I just want to be able to read something and not have to interpret every single line and pick out all the symbols from less than a page of writing. I’d rather look at the big picture of a book and see the symbols present that relate to the theme or certain characters, instead of such a small read. Although this is true for me I can see how reading poetry gives the same escape from life as books do.
- Bolger, J. 2
Poetry is an incredibly beautiful thing that advances beyond all human communication. In his TEDTalk, Stephen Burt points out the importance poetry holds in our society, and the impact it is capable of having.
ReplyDeleteIn one of the first points Burt makes, he admits that, “I am a word person. I understand the world best, most fully, in words rather than, say, pictures or numbers.” Burt is saying that he best comprehends the events that occur, the people that speak, and the ugly things that are seen through words. People cannot read emotions through a phone number, nor can they determine tone through a painting. This is exactly why we need poetry. If somebody were to just speak of whatever they felt, it would bore us all to death. Where bland communication does not prove strong enough, poetry steps in to finish what was started.
Another point Burt made is that “Poetry isn’t one thing that serves one purpose any more than music or computer programming serve one purpose.” By this, he means that poetry has multiple jobs. We don’t read and write poetry simply because it’s required in academics, we do it because it’s beautiful. Poetry serves to lift your spirits when you write it, and make you think when you read it.
My personal favorite point made by Burt is when he argues that “When you read a poem you can imagine someone speaking to you, or maybe for you.” This one sentence spoke to me more than anything else he said in his remaining 13 minutes. When we read poetry, we connect it to our lives. If we can’t connect it directly, we try to find a way to make it work. Each stanza we read was written just for us.
Burt makes some incredible points in his TEDTalk which were easy to follow as they were so accurate. Continuing on with his arguments, my own take on poetry is very similar. I think poetry is so important to the way we think and interact as human beings. Poetry helps us to express ourselves with each word we write. For those who only read poetry, we still benefit from poetry’s nature as it encompasses the evil in the world and hides it away while we patch our wounds.
Cruse, S 2
Stephen Burt emphasizes the need for poetry in society because provides people with a way to express their ideas and emotions in their own unique way. He states that knowledge about poetry increases the way in which people communicate. The vast amount of techniques that can be utilized when writing a piece of poetry is astounding. This structural and grammatical diversity allows writers to develop their own unique writing style by exposing them to the different tools they could use to create a poem. Not every writer will like the same flow, or follow the same pattern, but that is what make poetry special and allows it to be focused on the writer’s own individual ideas, as well as his or her talents.
ReplyDeleteThe personal connection that people feel from reading poems is an important topic in Stephen Burt’s speech. Burt emphasizes the fact that poems are easy to share, easy to pass on, and that when people read a poem they feel as though someone is reading that poem just for them. People feel a greater connection to poems because they echo an idea, belief, or experience shared by the reader. The rhyme scheme and lyrical flow of poems makes them stick with the reader and remain memorable for years to come. A poem can express the author’s purpose to readers in an impactful and memorable way. Ideas prevalent in different cultures or time periods are brought together by poetry.
Stephan Burt’s passion for poetry is shown when he is analyzing poetry. His passion and in-depth thinking demonstrates the power of poetry. Through its ideas and structure, poetry has the ability to influence different types of people in different ways. As Burt reassures, nothing bad is going to happen if readers “misinterpret” a poem. Every person is going to reach their own understanding of a poem that is impactful to them. Poetry gives readers an opportunity to read deeper and find a personal meaning in the poetry they read. This meaning is important because it allows readers to discover something new about themselves or the world that they may use to better understand the world around them and expand their capabilities.
Poetry is a dynamic form of literature that allows writers to have greater freedom in expressing their creativity. I think that poetry is vital to expanding human creativity. Although poems may be hard to write for many writers, they open up a new world of ideas for writers once they have mastered the basics. Poetry has the ability to make readers dive deeper to find meaning within a text. An important aspect of poetry is its ability to last throughout the ages. I believe that poetry helps members in society communicate and understand each other in way no other form of literature can.
Judele, C 2nd
Throughout the years, poetry has grown on me. When I was young, I hated reading anything outside of the simple Dr. Seuss novels. As more poetry was introduced to me, I started to grow fond of it. Whenever I read a poem, I view it as a puzzle that needs to be solved. The TED Talks video spoke to the significance and need for poetry. The speaker mentioned many points, but the ones that stuck out to me were poetry’s relationship with emotion, connecting people, and making thoughts relevant from the past and present.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first points that the speaker made was how poetry is related to emotion. He explained how every word in every poem is crafted to represent some feeling that is unique to every person who reads it. Towards the end of the video, the speaker goes into detail about how there is no right or wrong way to feel. Emotion can be different in everyone, and interpreting a poem in a different way than someone else is not bad. The ability to evoke emotion is what makes poems not only special, but powerful pieces of literature.
Another point that the speaker made is that poems connect people in different cultures and locations. Poems are great for expressing detail, and that gives the reader the ability peak into others lives. This ability to connect and communicate with people of a different kind opens the doors to sharing new information and ideas whenever they come up.
A last point that the speaker brings up is that poems allude to ideas from the past and present. In one of the poems the speaker reads, he talked about the Garden of Eden, which obviously happened many years ago. He also mentioned how poems talk about future actions and act as guide to prevent mankind from following a wrong path or idea.
From watching the Ted Talks and reading poetry, I have come to believe that poetry is important because it can carry many messages and cater to anyone at anytime. Poems are great because one can read them one time and receive a message, but read them at another time and see a completely different message. These messages can be specific to an event one is going through and truly build a relationship between the text and the reader.
Overall, poetry carries many different traits, which help the reader in many different ways. The ability to relate to an individual at any time while alluding to past and present events makes poetry unique and special. Its ability to communication and give the reader different perspectives on life makes poetry a strong type of literature and one that the world can not live without.
Wasylko, G 7/8th
Poetry, in its simplest form, is entertainment. Burt explains his affinity to poetry because of the way each word of a poem rolls off his tongue perfectly and with specific intentions. People need poetry because it is an avenue through which people can enjoy following. Burt says that poetry can make us happy and sad, and that this spectrum of emotions evoked from poetry is what allows it to entice all types of readers.
ReplyDeleteHowever, poetry is not only entertainment. It is a bridge that connects people of close, far, and unreachable places. Burt says, “We are all going to die”; however, he goes onto say how poems can connect us to those who have passed. Poems transcend death. They allow us to understand the people we can no longer meet and in return, allow us to appreciate our own temporary existence. Through poems, we find comfort in the inevitably of death.
Finally, Burt emphasizes poetry as a reflection of society. In the poem, “The Garden”, Burt explains how Armantrout’s words of the Garden of Eden relate to society as a whole. The definition of “smack” highlights the positive and negative nature of sexual interaction and the overall duality that runs wild in society. By reflecting the truths of and within society, poems give readers a new perspective and way of thinking, both extremely important additions for human growth.
After hearing Burt, I believe that poetry is important because it is a guide for self-discovery. All individuals are looking to understand who they are and their purpose in life. I believe that poetry is a physical search for understanding mirroring the search for oneself. Poetry can be extremely difficult to comprehend. We tear it a part word by word to find its meaning, just as we look for meaning in every action we take. When we are content with our understanding of a poem, we move on to the next poem, once again, finding its unique meaning.
Srivastava R, 2
In his TED Talk, Stephen Burt explores the implications of poetry in our lives. He discusses the meaning and nature of poetry through examining several poems that have played pivotal roles in his own appreciation for poetry. The poems that Burt uses in his TED Talk are quite intricate and moving. He uses these poems as baselines for broader points on why we need poetry. Burt explores the notion that poetry helps people cope with death; allowing for people to look beyond someone’s personal expiration and see into their mind. Poetry can be used to celebrate someone’s life, as it exists within poetry, and can be broadened as to celebrate the author’s accomplishments in his or her poetry as a whole. He takes this notion further, describing how poetry can allow for people to say goodbye to people or events through the stanzas that they create. Following the second poems Burt shares with the audience, he proposes that we need poetry because of its trans missive properties in terms of knowledge. Poetry can be the medium for messages and knowledge to be shared across the globe and through the confines of the time period in which the given poetry was written. Lastly, Burt asserts that poems show the reader what it is like to be someone else; reading poetry provides insight into the author’s mind and the thoughts and emotions within. Reading poetry can allow for the reader to see what it is like to be someone with extreme emotion, intense curiosity, looming depression, or inherent courage. These are all important function of poetry, but I personally hold poetry in a higher regard for one simple reason: it provokes emotion. Life moves too fast, so much so that often we don’t have time to feel. So when I get the chance I like to sit down for ten minutes and read a poem or two. I’m often brought to tears and I could not be happier with the result. I believe that sitting and basking in emotion for a few minutes is needed, and often times is therapeutic. That is why I adore poetry, because of it’s affect on our stoic routines, and it’s ability to keep us in touch with our passions.
ReplyDeleteBruggeman, Jacob 7/8th
As a poet myself, it’s hard to tell sometimes where life ends and poetry begins. I make sense of the world through putting it into words, and my experiences seem real only if I’m able to articulate them. I think in metaphors. I like converting feeling into image and sensation into verse. I express myself best with literary devices at my hand, when I can communicate by weaving a poem or telling a story. To me, words are the world, and poetry is taking that world and building a universe around it.
ReplyDeleteIn his lecture on “Why People Need Poetry,” Stephen Burt expresses that, “Poems made me feel happier and sadder and more alive.” It is this inherent ability of poetry – to make us feel every emotion on the spectrum – that makes it worth reading and writing. It adds color and texture to the human experience because it makes us feel more broadly than we typically allow ourselves to feel. It works to make us happy or angry, bothered or comforted, warm or cold inside. By making certain feelings more accessible and allowing us a window to experiences other than our own, poetry reaches out to us and enhances our lives. Burt also states that all we can do is read poems and “see if they can bring us what we need.” The advice, the reassurance, and the hope we so desperately seek can all be found in the realm of poetry. Someone somewhere at some point in time has felt the same way we do now and has expressed it in terms that can resonant with us. A poem can sense whatever is lacking in our lives and deliver it to us in a neat little package on our doorstep. It is necessary to read poetry in order to find these missing elements and fill these empty spaces within us. Lastly, Burt puts forth the idea that poems can “introduce you… to people very much unlike you, even people from long ago.” Poetry is the string that wraps around mankind and binds it together. Through it, we can get to know people who otherwise would be strangers to us. Through it, we’re given a glimpse into a head and the opportunity to have a conversation with someone who perhaps hundreds of years ago had their voice silenced. And still, that voice echoes on. Poetry is necessary because it appeals to our shared humanity and triggers empathy. We can recognize parts of ourselves in the poems of others, and this solidifies the connection that one human feels towards another.
Another reason I believe we need poetry is that it can serve as a release. When I write a poem, I feel like I’m detoxing. I get off my chest what’s been building up there for days, maybe even months or years, and I feel better by translating those inner thoughts into outer expressions. Poetry allows me to channel joy or frustration or heartache into a piece, and once I’m done with that piece, I can put that baggage down and move on. It’s how I deal with the world and myself, how I tackle my problems and come to understandings. Poetry gives me purpose and helps me come to terms with the world. Without it, I’d be voiceless.
Keller N 7/8
Poetry is a form of writing that has been around for centuries. There are various motives for why people write poetry. Venting his/her feelings out to the world benefits the writer. The reader is also able to benefit from poetry by being able to relate to it. In his TED talk, Stephen Burt speaks about why poetry is important to him and why the world needs poetry.
ReplyDeleteBurt states that poems can bring people together temporarily. When poets sit down with their pens, pencils, computers, or typewriters, they usually do not write about only one topic, but multiple topics, connecting them altogether. These topics, due to the fact that there are so many in one poem, attract a wide range of audiences. The subjects are relatable for many people, and therefore, a single poem can bring thousands of people together for the instant that poem is read.
Poetry is used to express emotions. Emotions are an aspect of human nature that are valuable to society. Poems may be read at weddings to express happy emotions. They may be read at funerals to express sad emotions.
Poems show what it was like to be so anxious or lonely or happy. Burt says that poems are useful when wanting to say goodbye to something or someone. Due to the fact that poems allow feelings to be further expressed, they enhance the ways people communicate.
Another reason why poetry is necessary is because it is a way to display patterns and techniques. There are many different literary devices used by poets. Allusions are common and so is personification. Rhyme schemes are either clearly visible, not too visible, or do not exist at all. The tens of hundreds of patterns and techniques allow poets to write in diverse ways, advancing their ratings from readers and fans.
I believe people need poetry because it provides a creative way to describe subjects. For example, if you wanted to describe an apple, a person would say ‘The apple is red’. A poet, however, would say ‘Red, delicious, and picked from a tree, it is placed into the harvester’s basket’. This may not be a great description but I am not an expert on this topic. I only know that the poems I have read in my life are blossoming with creativity. They all describe some event, person, or object. The poems are abstract or concrete. Poetry makes people think and thus allowing their minds to grow.
Patel, D 2
Over the years, poetry has definitely become a pretty big part of my life. Whether it is through writing it, reading it, or even living it, poetry has touched me in so many ways. Whenever I read poetry, each line sinks into me deeper than the last, leaving me questioning and wondering what it is all really about. In the TEDTalk speech, Stephen Burt points out the importance of poetry in humanity and what it is capable of doing.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite things that Burt points out is that poetry is a “way of patterns that put emotions into words.” Though not every poem is appealing to me, I will admit that every poem puts some type of emotion into me. Poems are capable of opening a person’s eyes to something that they had never realized before, and make them feel some type of deep emotion about that idea. I really like how Burt talks about the fact that poems are something that people look to in order to remember loved ones that they have lost. I can definitely say that I have done this before, and it is an amazing thing to know that others have, too. When I read a poem, I really do feel as if someone is talking to me or for me, and this brings out extremely deep, passionate emotions that I never even knew existed in me.
I really enjoyed how passionate Burt was in his talking about poetry. The way that he gets into everything that he is saying is extremely poetic in itself: the long pauses he takes in-between sentences, and the expansion of his ideas show only a few of his poetic ways. This goes to show how impactful poetry really is. People talk in a form of poetry every day. When a person tells someone they love how they feel about them, they are essentially using a form of poetry, instilling emotions in both themselves and the person they are talking to. Poetry is made up of much deeper speaking with deeper meanings. This deeper aspect of everything allows readers to truly think about what they are reading and even create their own meaning of the words. I really like what Burt says about how even if you’re wrong about the meaning of a poem, nothing bad will happen. This is because in poetry, it can mean absolutely anything; it can mean whatever you want it to mean. I think this is another reason why I really enjoy poetry, because I like coming up with my own meanings.
In his TEDTalk speech, Stephen Burt really opens the viewer’s eyes to how important of a thing poetry really is. Poetry is humanity: without it, humans would not be humans. It makes us who we are, and we live our lives in poetry every day whether we realize it or not.
Shaniuk, B 7/8
Poetry is considered by many to be a waste of time. However, in his TED talk, Stephen Burt explains the many reasons why poetry is not. All of Burt’s main ideas mentioned return to the idea that poetry is a form of communication in its very essence.
ReplyDeletePoetry can connect time periods to each other as Burt mentions. The poem The Garden by Armantrout allows the reader to look back to the Biblical time of the Garden of Eden, but Burt says it has inspired many science-fiction writers, which connects readers also to the future. The common themes addressed in poetry are ones that resonate in any era, making it a strong and universal presence.
Poetry also has a very significant way of creating a bridge between very different cultures. Burt brings up the many ways that technology has made access to poets from all over the globe possible. The infinite number of ways to spread the art of poetry is astounding, such that a stranger from India could be reading the musings of a fledgling poet in Kentucky. The power of this international link is so strong and makes the world just a little bit smaller in my opinion.
The beauty in poetry is that it can explain one’s most complex and indescribable thoughts in a few simple lines. Love, hate, sorrow and other passions cannot always be fully captured in any other way but words. The freedom and variety that poetry can appear in makes these feelings explainable.
Personally. I believe that poetry is art, and art is essential to life. What is the meaning to life without beauty, and expression? One does not lie on their death bed pondering math, or making business deals. At one’s most intense times in life, they turn to the primal, raw and pure entities. Art. Whether it be poetry, painting, music, dance or whatever form of beauty suits you, art is what we live for, it gives meaning to life. Everything else is just what sustains us.
Florek, E. 7/8
One thing that this TED talk says is that poetry is not one thing that serves one purpose. He is saying that what poetry does and how it affects people is something that changes and does not always mean one definite thing. Poetry can mean something different for every person. A poem about war could mean for one person a time in their life when they lost their father on a battlefield overseas and for another person it could mean that there is a need for peace in this world. This makes poetry a necessity because even though it means something different for everyone it still means something to everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that is said is that poems can bring us news from the future or even from the past. Burt is saying that poetry helps us understand and get through things that have either happened or are going to happen. Burt even brings up that we are all going to die, a fact that, while harsh, is true and there is nothing we can do about it save for accepting it. Poetry helps us do that. It is a necessity because it takes things that people may not want to talk about and speaks to them in a way that makes them emotional about it and maybe even helps them deal with the reality of life and mortality.
Burt talks about how there is not just one answer when analyzing poetry and that even if you are wrong nothing bad will happen to you. For some people this may be annoying because they need to know that they are right or that they are wrong and they need that definite answer. However, I believe that this makes poetry a necessity because people need to learn to accept one another’s ideas and thoughts or else this world would cease to have any sort of peace because people would be arguing about what peace really is or whether or not it has validity. Finding that your thoughts are different than someone else’s can be difficult but what should be intriguing is that they are still about the same poem.
I believe that poetry is a necessity because there are all different kinds of patterns and styles that express things differently or the same. There can also be two poems written in completely different ways but are about the same thing or idea. Poetry is a way for people to say things in their own way and I believe that taking away poetry would be like taking away someone’s ability to speak their own thoughts.
Dame, E 2*
Stephen Burt offers many examples of the necessity of poetry in his TEDTalk. He walks his audience through many types of poetry and works to explain their meanings while explain the real-world significance of each poem.
ReplyDeleteBurt devotes a significant amount of time in his talk to explaining the feelings that readers have as they sift through poetry. Poems are reflexive of the readers, meaning that poems can help to show readers how they are feeling inside. We frequently explore this idea in class while examining the multiple interpretations of poems. For some, the poetry read in class takes on a different meaning than it does for others. Slowly, however, others can come to see this same person’s viewpoint. It is through this expression of ideas that poetry becomes unique. Not only does it represent the reader’s present thoughts and feelings, but it allows them to discover the thoughts of people that are very unlike themselves.
One of Burt’s points that I liked in particular was his view on interpretation of a poem. He said that one can never be certain about the meaning of a poem. Rather, one can only see if it brings them what they need. Poems are necessary for this reason. They have the ability to being hope and happiness to a bad day through their individual interpretations. If a reader is ‘wrong’ in their interpolation, Burt reinforces that it does not matter. Sometimes a poem can give a reader what they want. Other times, however, it may not.
Finally, Burt expresses that the patterns of poems can bring people together temporarily. He uses the poem “The Garden” as an example of this. Although the poem was written in one time, it shows the lives of those living in another time. Poetry can bridge this time gap and temporarily bring groups of people together. These groups many be from the past, or even the future. Poetry is unique in its ability to temporarily join groups that are very different from each other.
For me, poetry is important because of its ability to allow me to reflect on my choices and actions. The first poem I ever memorized was “The Cold Within.” I would suggest that everyone read the poem at some point in their lives. It focuses on how our opinions of others can cause our demise. This poem allows me to reflect on how I treat others and how foolish some of the things we disagree about can be. This is just one example of a poem that allows me to reflect, but one that I remember very well. Sometimes, poetry can say to me what I am afraid to tell myself. For me, that is why we need poetry.
Poetry is a necessity for all human beings. The benefits are plentiful and there are no negative sides to this form of literature. In this TEDTalk, Why People Need Poetry, Stephen Burt is able to describe not only his passion for poetry, but he also expresses multiple reasons why poetry is necessary in a person’s life.
ReplyDeleteOne of the first and more grim topics he brings up is one that most people try to avoid. He talks about how poetry can help people cope with inevitable death. Poetry can help people remember those who have passed on. Poetry can also help to celebrate and even talk to those people who have died. Another way poetry can help people cope with death is that poetry can give life through its words. Reading and writing poetry will create a sense of purpose or vitality. It will give life meaning.
Poetry allows people to express heir emotions. Not every word has to make sense and not every stanza has to be a straight forward example of what the writer is feeling. Even if that is true in a poem, every word will represent some feeling to the writer and the reader. The same emotion may not be shared between the reader and writer, but this is not wrong. Everyone will feel their own personal emotions when it comes to poetry.
Poetry can also allow people to come together. If the poem comes together, so can the people who read it. Poems have the ability to put someone in other people’s shoes. They show what it is like to be like other people. They are personal pieces of literature that can help a person say not only what they are feeling, but also help them feel what other people unlike them are feeling. It allows people to understand other cultures, genders, backgrounds, or other different factors. Because of this, poetry helps people connect.
In my own personal opinion, poetry has a factor that has less to do with emotions and society. Poetry has a way to make people think logically and creatively at the same time. It encourages thought process and exercises the brain. Even if a poem makes no sense at all, the reader will ponder each word and try to find ways to interpret what they read into something they understand. I believe it is necessary that people think in depth, but also that people can use their imagination. This does not make poetry less about being human. It actually enhances individuality and finding a sense of self. By doing this, people create unique meaning from each poem because each person thinks in a unique way. Each person’s interpretations or imaginations will make the poem their own.
Poetry has many benefits to human beings. It can help us emotionally, socially, and intellectually. People can connect to those unlike themselves yet discover who they are as an individual. It can help people be deep thinkers and think outside the box. Poetry has a timeless quality that will allow it to help people years into the future.
Hornung A. 7/8
Poetry is an art form that has been around for centuries and is a way of communication that is still used and regularly read.
ReplyDeletePoems are unique in the way that one part (one line, word, or sentence) can symbolize more than one thing that then connects with the meaning or the multiple meanings the poem is saying. This allows for diversity in the way that the poem is viewed and makes it more acceptable to different audiences. In Stephen Burt speech, he speaks of how there is not one answer to what the poem is about. A reader can come to their own conclusion based on the meaning that they find giving the text a universal audience. This allows people to connect with different ideas and emotions no matter the time period they are read in. Someone may read a poem from the seventeen hundreds and a poem from the nineteen nineties about the same topic and they can connect with both because poetry encompasses the raw emotion into its text. Though they may differ in style and time period the subject is relatable and stands the test of time, and many are able to connect to those works through their own raw emotion. The raw emotion that draws people to read poetry is incorporated in the actual poem itself. The short read offers insight into how people are feeling because the poetry they read often reflects how they feel, just like the music they listen to. This creates a deeper connection to the work and allows people to personally insert themselves or see their own situation reflected in the poem. Humans live on raw emotion; that’s why we have friends and enemies and varying opinions on different subjects and being able to connect to these things gives the poem validity and makes it a poem.
Poetry offers these different emotions through the way its written. I find it interesting in the artistic creativity each author has over their words, and the deeper meaning that it gives to their text. Stephen Burt talks in a poetic way that enunciates and drives a deeper meaning to specific points that he says. The pauses that occur in the middle of a sentence, just like those in between line of a poem add build suspense and highlight key points or ideas. Poetry is not limited to certain writing styles and can take any form it wants. It can be long and heavily worded or short and simple, with lots of pauses added to intensify what is being said. That’s the beauty of poetry, that the author can create exactly what they wish to say in however long (or short) text with their own unique writing style. Poetry is a form of art through the contortion of words, allowing people to connect with it and allowing it to stand the test of time, just like the great paintings in the Cleveland Art Museum.
-Supina R. 2
I actually enjoyed this TED Talk quite a bit. Stephen Burt discusses how it is not just about lines and literary devices, but instead he speaks of the impact of poetry in regards to carrying ideas and the preservation of humanology through all these different stages. Overall, he speaks to a lot of different reasons why poetry is necessary. For one, he talks about patterns, and how the certain assignment of words, structure and rhyme schemes can create mood and the sharing of knowledge. Also, this tells us a lot about the author and how they write and convey ideas. Additionally, poetry, through its complex structure, shows us feeling and gives us knowledge. He talks about the complexity versus the simplicity of poetry. Poetry, unlike books, is a great way to share compact ideas and feelings. Not to mention, poetry allows us to come to our connections and feel, for ourselves, the piece. He really emphasizes how we interpret the poetry, and how we use this to learn and gain for our own life. Lastly, he explains how poetry is connecting. Poetry has the ability to connect people from all backgrounds, all countries, all time periods through just one piece. They are condensed through simplistic, yet powerful decisions and they still create feeling and education no matter where they originate from. Overall, Stephen Burt explains the true impact poetry has, and how this can be used to gain knowledge and understanding in a unique, yet powerful, way.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I think poetry is a fascinating work. I think it is a simple way to carry ideas from all different life times, and walks of life. Not only this, it is short enough to allow anyone to take on its form. Poetry is not about grammar, it is not about using the most prestigious vocabulary; poetry is about putting your feelings on the page. Poetry is a simple dose into any author’s life. And it is because of its brevity that author’s have to choose the most compact way to present their ideals, and it is with this that we truly, as readers, learn to respect and understand and author’s piece. I like poems personally because they are easily obtainable, considering their size, and when unraveled allow you personally to feel like you have discovered something. I agree with Stephen Burt, poetry has a lot of potential, and a lot of knowledge to share. It just has to be unlocked.
Megan Lear 2nd
I am not ashamed to admit that I am one of the people that thinks that people do not need poetry. If I were to never read, write, or hear another poem again I would be perfectly fine with it. However Stephen Burt disagrees. One of the things that he says is that poetry can speak to you, or even for you. Sometimes poetry is the only thing people can really connect with, and the words of the author of poems. People can say all they need to say without saying anything, they can say everything simply by presenting the words in a poem. Poetry can be used as another form of expression, and that is good because some people have no other means of expression. He also says that poems can bring people together temporarily. They can be read centuries apart from each other, and people can have no correlation to each other, yet when they read the same poetry they are connected. It is necessary to build connections, and that is what poetry does between people, connects them. Another one of his decent points is that poetry can be used to show the feelings of the author. For some authors the curtains are blue because they really are sad and depressed, not just because they like the color blue. One of the reasons I suppose we need poetry is because sometimes the only time real issues can be presented is through poetry. When I say this I am thinking more along the lines of poetry slams. Some of the best points about the realest issues have been presented through poetry slams. For some people that is the only way they would feel comfortable presenting their ideas and that is when they can be the most passionate
ReplyDeleteAnna Bunting 2nd
Poetry, whether liked or disliked, is important to humanity. Be this in a good or bad way, it affects how life is lived throughout history. In his TEDTalk, Stephen Burt gives a few examples of poetry’s importance and the effect it leaves on human life.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Burt’s most impactful idea is that people take what they need from poetry. Interpretation, whether correct or not, gives the reader a way to connect to the poem they are reading. It does not matter if they are necessarily right in their connection- just that they are making it, because in this way the person finds out something new about themselves or the world around them. A person will take from a poem whatever they need or want to see.
Similarly, Burt mentions that poetry often helps someone cope with death. A poem can bring a reader closer to those whom they have lost, or the inevitability of their own death. Poetry is a way to keep the dead alive, in a sense, through words that will last forever. It’s a comfort to people, knowing that even once they have died, they may still live on in the words of others.
I also enjoyed how Burt mentioned poetry’s ability to bring people together. Through reading the same poem, society can come to understand each other just a little better. Like this, it opens a reader’s mind just a little more to the world around them. Poetry has the power to put a person in someone else’s shoes for just a little while, and through this it makes it easier to understand each other.
I myself think poetry is important because of its ability to bring a person closer to themselves. Poems are beautiful in the sense that they can make someone realize something they never knew about themselves before. Self-discovery through poetry is something I’ve always found comforting, and even more knowing that I am not the only one who has felt these things—in fact, someone took the time to put the same things down on paper. Poetry can not only bring a whole people together, but it can also lead a single person to really understand themselves. Once a person understands themselves, they are capable of whatever they put their mind to, and poetry makes this possible.
-Avery A, 2nd
Poetry is a necessity to mankind. Poetry is more than words on a page. It is very much alive. It is a way for people to come together and make sense of life.
ReplyDeleteIn his TEDTalk, Stephen Burt spoke about the central features as to why poetry is needed. One of my favorite things he said was the quote featured in the description: “We’re all going to die - and poems can help us live with that.” He spoke of poetry being a method used for remembrance and understanding of the human condition. This is just one of many patterns in poetry, congregation towards something that affects us all, death. Commonality is one of many reasons why poetry is needed.
Poetry is also needed because it can bring news. It is a method of sharing ideas and concepts. When he read “The Garden” he explained that even though at first glance the poem made little sense, it came together to send a message about the passage of time. This reminded me of how Stephen King refers to writing as a message in a bottle as it can be received in any time and any place. Burt’s dissection of this piece displays poetry’s ability to send emotions.
Furthermore, when Burt was speaking about the poem “The Garden” he brought up, in my opinion, his most interesting point. He spoke about how it doesn’t necessarily matter if a person doesn’t have the same meaning as the author when reading a poem. While this makes me extremely uneasy in regards to the multiple-choice section of the AP exam in May, it also excites me. It is exciting to think that every person that reads a poem could have a different meaning and still feel attracted to it. It’s why poetry is as universal as it is. The idea that a particular pattern of words could relate to everyone is why poetry is needed. Poetry gives us what we need.
Stephen Burt tackled many of the reasons that poetry is needed but he merely skimmed over what I feel is the most important reason: poetry comforts us. Poetry reminds us that people feel what we feel. It reminds us that we are not alone. It is a support system. That, to me, is why we need poetry.
-Kett J 2
In his TEDTalk, Stephen Burt discusses some of the reasons why poetry is important. Firstly, he explains how poems are easy to share and pass on. The literal action of sharing a poem with someone does not take more than a few seconds and I feel this is very important because when one is at a loss of words, sometimes poetry can substitute in for our lost thoughts and say what we can't. Sharing our thoughts through poetry does not take long and can have an impact on that person. Burt also says how poetry can bring people together. This is especially true in the sense that when two or more people have nothing in common, it is through poetry that they can perhaps find common grounds and begin to understand each other. A young man approached a good friend of mine and asked if they could get together to discuss poetry and they did. before that they had barely uttered a word to each other. that is the perfect example of how poetry can bring people together. Finally, Burt says how poetry can connect the past, present, and future. We experience this all the time in school when we analyze poems that were written a long time ago. this is very important because through these poems we can see what the author saw/thought during that time period. I personally do not like poetry that much, however I recognize that it is important whether it be for entertainment, passing on a message to someone, or simply be a way of escape for some people.
ReplyDelete-Galvan, E. 2nd
In his TedTalk, Stephan Burt references the feelings that poetry can evoke. This is the most important reasons why poetry is still relevant. In the modern world, many people feel pressured not to reveal their feelings, as it might make them seem weak. Writing poetry becomes a constructive outlet for these pent-up emotions through relating them to something else. It could be about anything: a wheelbarrow, a meadow, even the city. Those who read them can choose to either take them as they are, or look beneath and find the same thoughts and emotions they are experiencing. Burt also mentions how many poems are about death. This makes perfect sense because any type of writing, be it narrative or poems or plays, is the author’s way of transcending death; they are allowing their ideas to live on. Through the feelings transmitted in poems, however, this takes on a different meaning. When the poem’s author puts feeling into their work, it is like a bit of their soul is trapped in the pages. Combine this with a poem’s already expressive flow and language, and what they wish to express becomes so potent that it is almost a form of time travel. A person in our future could read a poem written in 1777 and still find the connection the author intended. In this snapshot of someone’s soul, no matter how old or young, that person can find a kindred spirit. A third point Burt makes is that poems can be interpreted in different ways by everyone. When you read a story, there is usually an obvious meaning to it, something the author defiantly wants you to get. Poems are not written to be that way. There could be any multitude of meanings to a particular poem depending on the experiences and ideas of the person reading it. The meaning can change at any time, just as life always throws us curveballs.
ReplyDeleteI think we need poetry because it reminds us of our differences. Since the meaning of a particular poem could be different for everybody, we are forced to realize not everyone thinks the same way we do, and that the world is just a big mish-mosh of ideas trying find a way to work together. Take this for example: in a book of Celtic verse I own is a poem called The Crab Tree, by Oliver St. John Gogarty. I personally think it is about a poor person struggling to thrive in a hostile environment, but I fully recognize that if someone else wer to read it, say a person who is more fact-based in nature, all they would see is the tree, and I cannot convince them otherwise. In life as in poetry, you need to learn to see the tree and the person at the same time. M
Maslach, K 2
Poetry helps understanding. As Stephen Burt says, "We are all going to die. Poetry can help us live with that". Poetry is filled with beautiful words and descriptions of life. This makes it easier to focus on life and accept we are all going to die someday by describing how we can live incredible lives. Even though most poetry may seem random, it makes sense and relaxes by inspiring fuller lives.
ReplyDeleteIn any poem, it can be found that the words represent multiple ideas or even people. Burt explains this by saying, "We can go to poems when we want to remember something or someone, to celebrate or to look beyond death or to say goodbye". Poems open our minds to find realizations and help us connect. They have a way of listening and giving what the reader needs. When I am really upset, I read poetry that tells me it will be okay even if it has nothing to do with my exact situation. Every poem can have multiple meanings. It just depends on what you need.
Burt also comments on how "poems can make you say". This is true because I always have trouble finding my words. Sometimes there are things I want to say but it seems my feelings can not be put into words. When I read poetry suddenly it all makes sense and my feelings flow.
One reason I believe poetry is necessary is because it changes the way we think and broadens our vocabulary. Poetry opens our minds to new ways of thinking. If the only way we could express ourselves was through saying we were sad or happy then there would be no emotions in this world. Sad and happy do not mean anything. Poetry allows us to truly express the way we feel and why we feel.
For some people poetry seems random and only as words put together for fun. That may be the case for some poems, but usually there is a connection for someone to relate to. Stephen Burt says, “We’re all going to die- poems help us live with that.” Poems can help someone remember, celebrate or say goodbye. The poets who write these poems want to express something, but the words written are up to the reader’s interpretation. People can connect to them in their own way. That’s one great thing about poetry, nothing happens if someone is wrong. If the poet says what their poem is about it does not mean anything bad is going to happen if someone interprets it differently. Poetry is a form of expression that is about feeling. They can make people feel sad, happy or angry. It can be compared to music in that fact that it helps those feelings that cannot be put into a clear sentence. Poetry is an art form that helps make the world more expressive.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that poetry is a necessity because it can challenge the way you think. It can open your mind to different cultures, new ideas, and even different time periods. There are different parts of this world I will never understand and poetry can give me a glimpse into that reality. A poem can take me to a different time period where the ideas were vastly different. Poetry can help us understand the personal experiences rather than just the facts.
LoDolce, A 7/8
“Poems can bring news from the past, the future, or across the world because they can tell you what’s in someone’s heart. They can bring people together temporarily.” Poems form a feeling of camaraderie between like beings. They force all different ideas into a compact piece that makes viewpoints from all sides well known. Poetry allows the power to explain what you feel in your heart through different terminology rather than the basic explanation of what one is feeling. They can bring new light onto new timeless ideals.
ReplyDelete“Smack can mean lip-smacking or a sign of affection, or it can be domestic abuse. Sexual attraction can also be threating and red for passion can also symbolize poison.” Poetry takes terms and allows many different interpretations to be taken in by the reader. The beauty behind them is in the eye of the beholder and the way that they are taken in may not be agreed to by many but that is ok and accepted because of the broad subject matter these poems have the ability to cover.
“Runaway because they are afraid but the suns example fortifies him causing him to rise. People meditate on past and future life and death and above and below and that makes us afraid. Poems show us what it was like to be a person like that.” Poetry can help the underdog rise to the top. It can express feelings of defeat and the rise from it. It allows the reader into those feelings and to relate. Poems shine a light on negative feelings and positive ones alike, and allow the audience to feel those types of feelings as they are experiencing the poem.
Personally I believe that we need poetry because it is a beautiful play on words. This word play can be used to display so many different emotions and it can make even the most simplistic matter something so complex. Poetry spices up language compared to everyday basic literature, and it is so easily expressive and should be valued as such.
Mewhinney, M 2
Poetry serves various purposes and can take on many different meanings for the reader. Stephen Burt discusses different needs poetry serves and its importance in his TEDTalk.
ReplyDeleteOne point Burt makes is that poems are needed to connect people from different times. He explains that one can store memories in words, and emotions can be poured out from the author to the reader. Poems have the ability to do this unlike other forms of writing. The rhythmic structure and diction among other components each play a key role in the understanding of the text. The author intricately designs his or her poem to convey a message long after they have passed.
Burt goes on to dissect the importance of the ambiguity of poems. He says that a person can be completely wrong about the meaning of a poem and that is completely fine – nothing bad will happen. This allows for a deeper connection between the reader and the work itself. This relatability is what draws readers to poetry; it allows them to see and feel exactly what they need because they will take from a poem to suit themselves. Authors of poems consciously write their works to be left up to interpretation, giving readers the freedom to take what they need.
Another point he makes is simply that poetry allows the reader to be transported into the lives of the narrators. He reads the poem “The Brave Man” to his audience as an illustration. He explains how the narrator portrays the sun as bold and courageous, which is a drastic contrast to himself. The reader steps into the shoes of narrator and experiences the emotion he feels. This also creates a deeper connection for the readers and causes the poem to resonate within them.
I believe that poetry is needed to help readers make discoveries about themselves. This discovery can be in the meaning of the poem itself, or in the hard work and dedication the reader needed to find any meaning in the poem at all. The meanings drawn from the lines of the poem have the ability to shed light on areas of a person’s life that they had not been able to find. It can provide the person with the confidence needed to face the next day, or the comfort to know that there is someone out there that cares, even if they will never meet. Poetry can be one of the most difficult works to understand because of the ambiguity previously discussed. Readers may learn that they are fully capable of conquering a seemingly impossible task and finding meaning in the group of lines they had believed to be random words on a page.
Woods, L 2
An important thing that Burt points out is “a way of patterns that put emotions into words”. I think that this is very meaningful to a lot of poetry. Many people write poetry because it helps them deal with problems in their lives. As I read poetry each poem I read evokes some type of emotion in me, even if I don’t particularly like the poem. When I read poems I can relate it to past experiences I have had or things I have felt. They bring about emotions in the reader and even though it is through a few words.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that Burt talks about is how there is “not just one answer when analyzing poetry”. As we analyze poetry in class sometimes I get a different take on the poem then others around me. Burt says that there isn’t just one specific way to analyze poetry and everyone interprets it differently. I think that part of this is life experiences. Depending on what you have gone through in your life you could interpret part of the poem differently.
Lastly, Burt talks about how poetry can bring news. Depending on the time period the poem was written it will have a different affect on the reader. If the author of the poem experienced an event directly, for example, the holocaust, the reader will see the perspective of someone directly involved. If a writer writes about an event that directly involves them then it will give the reader a fresh perspective on the event.
Personally, I think that we need poetry because it evokes emotion in the reader. It can create a sense of communion between the author and the reader because they can relate to the same thing. Poetry allows people to connect in a way that isn’t possible with just speaking.
Poetry serves as a sort of enjoyment to readers. Burt had said, “poetry made him happier and sadder.” It allows readers to develop connections to different pieces and find deeper answers to their own self-questions. Reading to recognize a theme of a poem and then connecting it the reader’s questions in life is one reason poetry is a necessity because it serves a greater purpose to the reader.
ReplyDeleteBurt had said, “the more techniques you know the more things you can make.” Poetry breaks ideas into different patterns and helps create an understanding of why things might happen in life, death being an example. Readers can find comfort and similar thoughts from the poet themselves.
Lastly, Burt talks about the effect poetry has on people that makes it so important. He says, “It plays up how we are going to die by exaggerating the speed of our lives.” Poets hold the power to take something so big, shrink it down and make the prevalent meaning portrayed in a limited amount of lines. Poems give society a new way at looking at their lives and helps to shape their minds as well.
I think we need poetry because it provides us with the words to describe our emotions, thoughts, and questions. It can take a big idea and condense it into a couple of lines while providing answers as to why society thinks a certain way. It provides comfort as well as triggers mind growth by introducing different patterns in the way we think. It overall, expands our knowledge and deepens our thought process, which shows the importance of poetry.
Ramsumair 7/8
Stephen Burt, in a fairly recent TEDTalk, discusses the value of a literary area that has been neglected as of late: poetry. One of the primary topics that Burt hits on is that poetry helps us not only cope with the finiteness of our own existence, but it helps us cope with the passing of loved ones and in a way, talk to them or say goodbye. In a way, poetry picks up where reality leaves off, and it allows us to deal with the fact that we are going to die, and that others in our life already have.
ReplyDeleteAdding to that, poetry helps us put new experiences into words. Sometimes it is very difficult to describe a new feeling or event, and poetry oftentimes helps describe that event and put it into an eloquent form. Basically, poetry helps to put events of our lives into an easily relatable form. Poetry, according to Burt, can help us see things from a new perspective, putting the reader in another person’s shoes and helping us relate to experiences that we the reader have not yet partaken in.
Honestly, we need poetry because it can convey more meaning in a few lines that an entire book can in hundreds of pages. Sometimes it’s the minimalism and open-ended nature of the writing, or sometimes it’s the simplicity of making a grandiose point in just a few short lines. Poetry can be everything and anything, and that allows poetry to take whatever form the reader desires it to, and to me, that is invaluable. It is a unique and powerful medium, and it would be a real shame to see it continue to die out as it has.
Crow M 7/8
Poetry does not need to be liked to be relatable or to shake the ground underneath the reader’s feet. Stephen Burt is able to. Burt uses his personal experiences with some poets as testimony to support his statement of the necessity of poetry. Poetry is an outlet for many writers while it is an epiphany for many others. They can open up a world where emotions are celebrated and readers can truly learn how they feel. Burt even states it helps one connect with others: “they can also introduce you to feelings, ways of being in the world, people, very much unlike you, maybe even people from long, long ago.”
ReplyDeleteBurt introduces Rae Armantrout’s poem to explain that poetry allows those of privilege to live the experience of those alienated (in this case women) through wordplay. Poetry has no guidelines and no rules; often poems exist and the writers are they’re transportation to paper.
Burt references another poet and says, “The Scottish poet Denise Riley compares poetry to a needle, a sliver of outside I cradle inside.” This correlates with my personal reason why I think poetry is important. Poetry is direct. Unlike novels themes are not always woven deep down in relation to a character; poems let the audience bond with the writer and apply to their everyday life. Poetry can focus on such controversial, yet at time beautiful topics, that it is almost impossible to not talk about. Poetry demands to be heard.
-Grabowski, H. 7/8
There are several very important things Burt points out in TED talk, among them the few that stood out most would have to be that Poetry is a voice for someone else or is equivalent to someone else speaking to you. He is saying that sometimes really bad things happen and you can't quite express how you feel without conveying a whining quality or you just can't put it into words, poetry does that for you and in an artistic way.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing would be that poetry is needed because it helps be okay with the fact that we're all going to die and that right now we're here and alive and someday we won't be. It is almost unfathomable to think about because it's weird. You remember someone so warm and loving and when they die they're cold and not there and it's so different.
Poems can introduce you to ways of thinking and different feelings other people may have that you do not. It is a taste of outside culture and life from other people everywhere instead of a protected little bubble that each of us end up living in of our own thoughts and feelings.
I think we need poetry because it's a way to shamelessly release all of your feelings without regretting it later. It's an outlet when things go wrong, and I agree with Burt, it makes you feel happier, sadder, and in turn more alive.
Westphal 2nd period
Poetry is the artistic form of expressions in writing. With its patterns, structure, and meaning, one single poem can connect to a diverse group of people in numerous ways. In a way, it is like a painting that can be interpreted in anyway the viewer feels about the content. But poems also help us realize things we do not notice right away. It helps us accept the inevitability of death. It shows us into the future or even the past, exaggerating the speed in our human lives making us understand not to fear it, but to embrace it. To understand that it will soon be over, to take a look at the life the reader is living and make them understand that they can embrace that someday we will die but that day is not today so we should do the things we want to do, see, or learn.
ReplyDeleteBefore the acceptance of our death day, we are full of fear or even faith. Any emotion that people are feeling can be hard to explain and hard for others to feel. That’s where poetry comes in, to express the emotions we cannot say or know how to exactly feel ourselves. It gives the push people they need to express what they fear, what they love, what annoys them or desire. It’s the leap of faith they yarn for. It the artistic form that cure their sleepless minds of thoughts and emotions.
As humans, we feel and connect our emotions with others. Poems help us connect not only by emotions but also by the patterns and rhymes that come together to connect on their own. They bring everyone and anyone who will sit down and read their words that they are portraying in artistic structure full of emotion and thought. Others feel how they do, all over the world, and knowing this is what brings human kind together. Knowing the emotion of happiness, sadness, pain, and desire. It brings and connects people as a whole.
Aside from Stephan Burt’s opinions, I believe poetry can connect people on a deeper level in the moment, as in moment in time and history. Say if a woman is writing during the Great Depression, as the readers we are able to feel her struggle and fears. These types of poems take us back in time to really feel how they felt and I believe that’s an extraordinary thing that’s ever been created. It brings out true and honest emotion that can touch more than realized.
Poetry is more than entertainment. It connects us to people all around the world, the past, and ourselves. It makes us worldly and realize the restlessness of the mind that we are afraid to share in person.
S. Güt 7/8
Poetry is important for several reasons. Poems are great for sharing and passing on to others because of their concise nature. Poetry is a simple way to commemorate or address the dead. Poems are immortal and leaving them behind for others to read helps us cope with the fact that we won't live forever. The seeming simplicity of poetry makes it intensely enjoyable, even though poets take a very long time to write even the shortest of poems. Sometimes, poetry isn't very simple at all. Some poems require careful contemplation before an understanding can be met. These particular poems are enlightening to those who are willing to put the effort into analyzing them. Poetry is also ambiguous. As Burt says, "nothing bad will happen" if you interpret a poem in a way that the poet didn't intend.
ReplyDeletei think that poetry is the most artistic form of writing. I've read poems that consist of only five lines that have moved me more than entire books. Poetry is a powerhouse of emotion. Each poem can be a well-thought precise strike to our emotions. I have memorized three poems so far that are so beautiful and moving that I must keep them with me always.
Poems are said to bring people together in this ted talk and I would agree. It brings common ground. He says that the way poems bring people together is similar to the way a poem is brought together by its rhyme scheme, language and what the poem is completely about.
ReplyDeleteThe ted talks also speaks of the poem written based on a lipstick ad and how that was used to touch the emotions of readers. This emotion is another necessity of poetry because it allows a connection and opens eyes of those who read it.
He does make another point about how poetry always stays with you. There are poems people will not forget or will impact them. That lasting impression of poetry is another reason it is so needed. It can change outlooks and perspectives as well as inform one of things that may not have been known.
I believe we need poetry because of the way it flows and its reason for being written. Knowing there is a flow and finding a reason for the poem make it worthwhile. This is how I feel about life. Life needs reason and a flow or it doesn’t make as much sense and confusion occurs. Knowing poems have these things creates an order that makes poems readable and likeable to me. Having a reason and steady flow while reading allows me to find what it is about easier and break it down to apply it to me.
-Camille
Robert Frost once said, “poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” This quote shows the significance of poetry in that it is an outlet for our emotions, as Burt mentions in the TED talk. Poetry does this both directly and indirectly, depending on the author’s style. It allows for the expression of these emotions as well as both the readers’ and author’s reflection on them. Poetry is an excellent form of communication in terms of emotions.
ReplyDeleteNot only does poetry communicate emotions, but also ideas and ideals. This is the second characteristic that Burt mentions in his TED talk and perhaps the most vital. Poetry is an easily accessible and readily available form of communication that can result in impactful actions and thoughts. For example, the beat movement used poetry to convey their dissatisfaction with society and their theories for self-betterment.
Finally, the last characteristic Burt mentions is the timelessness of poetry. A poem from the Shakespearean era is still as relevant as a more modern one such as “metaphor of the tree”. This is because poetry is based less upon events and more upon ideas. The themes and messages of a poem move beyond a set time period and have the ability to remain immortal.
Personally, I think the most valuable characteristic is poetry’s ability to be relatable. All three aforementioned characteristics play into this attribute making it the most important. No matter the time period or the emotion, poetry has the ability to invoke emotion and force the reader to empathize with the author’s ideas/feelings. Though the story the poem is about may not be something the reader can relate to, the emotions behind it can be. Poems invoke empathy and they use pathos to make the reader feel.
-Harris, S 2*
An attribute of poetry that is mentioned in the video is the concept of conveying emotion. There is a struggle to find the words to express those emotions and poetry is a vessel used to assist with that. When one word can not fufill, entire lines or stanzas can be used in order to capture the feeling trying to be said. Poetry not only allows relief for the people with the conflicting emotions, but is also a critical literary tool in that regard. Another characteristic of poetry discussed is its timelessness. What can be written at one point in time could still be relevant thirty years later. It is common amongst all humans to have the desire to relate to other humans, and our feelings have remained consistant throughout history. Poetry is important and still relevant today because it is a helpful guide to the exploaration of the human condition. As we try to grow and develop ourselves as human beings, the path is not always clear. Poetry serves as the instrument to connect the dots in our own mind and learn more about ourselves in the expression of it.
ReplyDelete-Javorsky, R 2°
Poetry, for some people, can be a way to broadcast emotions that cannot be spoken aloud. The speaker wants to make clear that through poetry, there is a strong line of comfort. People can look to poetry as a way of reflection and use it to build themselves up. Due to the occasional confusing diction, poetry can be taken in many different directions. Poetry is a "one size fits all" type of writing. No matter who tries it on, it will fit in some shape or form.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker makes clear that poetry is easy to share; easy to pass on. With that being said, it provides the idea that with poetry, all is welcome. It is so easy for someone to get lost in poetry, for a lot of it can contain very meaningful messages. The messages may vary depending on the reader, which is why so many people can conform to the act of reading it. Poetry does not have a solid title, nor does it have a specific outline. It does not reside to only one genre and it does not have to have boundaries.
Through meaning, poetry can bring many different people together. Burt embraces that aspect with intensity. Poetry can cause people to set aside their own battles, to enjoy some peace. The speaker also clarified that it can get out to people, become known.
In my opinions, poetry is a way to escape. To set everything aside for a few precious moments and reflect. Some people, like me, have trouble letting out certain emotions. When I write poetry, it allows me to get rid of some bottled up feelings, to relieve myself. It is a beautiful and flourishing way to write, and I do not know what I would do without it. Poets have a talented way to broadcast such strong emotions through the simplest words. I have read so many poems that have been so powerful, but only consisted of ten words. Poetry takes emotion, it takes passion. And without it, I believe a lot of pure beauty and truth would be lost from this world.
Poems help us to understand things about ourselves that we can’t say for ourselves. That is, it allows us to remember and to think and to be afraid in words that we might not have thought on our own. They allow us to feel in greater spreads, not just in our own emotion but in that of others also.
ReplyDeletePoems bring us news from the past future and distant. This is because of how it rhymes and sticks in the memory. It allows us to see grand ideas in short and sticky form. The writer wrote it because they felt something and needed a poem to feel it properly. Then they made the poem they needed to hear, bringing them news from the future.
Poems are needed to extend the human condition beyond the confines of a lifespan. We can understand anyone at any given time by the poetry they write.
I think that people need poetry to be able to understand other people. While the TED Talk discusses many of the ways that a person might understand their self through poetry, it leaves out the ways that one might understand others. I was never a slave on a plantation in colonial Virginia, but through poetry I might see that my upper-middle class, white, northeastern Ohio childhood is not the universal truth.
-A. Jankovsky 7-8*
In this TEDtalk, Stephen Burt tells us why poetry is important and all it can do. One of the points he mentions is that poems tell us what we want to hear. Because poetry is up to the readers imagination, it can be interpreted many different ways. When we analyze poems, we can read in them what we want them to say, or what we want to be told. A poem conveys strong messages that we as readers interpret as our own. Stephen Burt also talks about how poetry can help us see through other people’s eyes. Poems create feelings of one group, and when read will make another group feel the same way. These emotions can create unity between people of different backgrounds. Poetry puts readers on an even playing field, they are all equal in what they read. All readers can feel the same emotions while still interpreting it differently. Burt also makes the point of poems staying with people. Poems have an impact on people that stays with them for a lifetime. You can keep poems with you and share them with others as they live on. I think poetry is especially important because it can teach people to think creatively as well as deeper about things. Poems force you to dig deeper and I think that applies to life as well. You can’t always take things at face value, and poetry teaches that by having so much meaning once analyzed.
ReplyDeleteParey C 7/8
Poetry is important for many different reasons. In this TedTalk, the speaker outlines a few of these reasons. One reason why poetry is a necessity is to say goodbye and remember the dead. When grieving, one always needs something to turn to, whether it be a friend, a loved one, music. For some, that something can be poetry. Writing your feelings is such a cathartic act, and for me, it really works. When a close family friend of mine died, I just wrote out how I felt. Everything. It took me five pages, but I got it all out, and I felt much better at the end. Reading or creating poetry is a coping mechanism, and it is absolutely necessary for those who find comfort in it. It can be used to remember those who have passed as well. It can help keep their memory alive. As the prompt stated, poetry is about being human, and there is nothing more human than death.
ReplyDeletePoetry can also be used to transport the reader to a different time, place, or body. Good poetry can put its reader into the scene and allow them to see things from a new perspective. They say you don’t really know a person until you walk a mile in their shoes. That can also go for poetry. You can’t truly understand a poem until you have abandoned your body and placed yourself into the poem to experience what the narrator did. Until you feel how the author wanted you to feel. This is necessary for readers to understand poems and connect with them on deeper levels.
Poetry is also important because it gets up close and personal with a reader. It allows a reader to connect to it and find a meaning that is important to them. The speaker mentions that it does not matter if the meaning that you find is correct. It just doesn’t matter. If that what it means to you, then that’s what it means to you. That’s what is so great about poetry; it can be interpreted so many different ways for so many different people. Every time you read something, it could be different. It is important that poetry is flexible so that it can potentially relate to everyone.
Personally, I believe that poetry is necessary because it provides a buffer between you and reality. As I stated earlier, it can be a coping mechanism, it can be used to express your ideas, it can help you let go of your feelings. It is how you express yourself. Poetry filters your thoughts into powerful words that are so personal to you, but at the same time, can help someone who is going through something similar. It is truly incredible how much poetry can affect a person, and it will always be necessary as long as human beings can still feel and act and think. We will always need poetry.
-Dushek, K 2˚
Poetry is necessary in human life for several reasons. In the TEDTalk video Stephen Burt mentions that poetry is necessary because it allows humans to convey emotion. A few lines on a page, with only a few words each line can convey more emotion than some people can show. A poem can express sadness, happiness, fear, lover, anger, and numerous other emotions. It presents humans with a way to convey strong and genuine emotions that they might not be able to show any other way. Poetry allows humans to express and experience feelings that they need to find a release from, or that they may never have experienced before. It is also mentioned in the TEDTalk that poetry allows for communication. Human communicate their thoughts and, as mentioned previously, feelings through poetry. According to Burt, using poetry people can communicate with people from all over the world, or with a character, or even with people that are no longer alive. Poems have a personal touch to them that makes it feel like the poem is speaking directly to oneself. The poems are a form of communication between poets and reader. They can be a way to guide or a way to seek guidance. They can tell the reader of the author’s displeasure at a certain idea or event. It is a way to communicate thoughts and dreams, worries and fears. It speaks to those in the future from those of the past. Burt mentions this in his speech and tells how poems can even allow people to communicate with past present and future. It is also mentioned that poems are up to interpretation. Poems are necessary to humans because of their flexibility in meaning. One person can take a poem a completely different way than another person might. The interpretation is up to the reader and, according to Burt, it is okay to misinterpret a poem and no one is ever truly sure what the author meant, except for the author in most cases. For this reason, it allows for imagination in the fact that the interpretation varies among different people. It is all in the eye of the beholder and depending on how that is taken. This makes it necessary for people to have poetry to use as a source of imagination in both making it and interpreting it.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I have found poetry necessary because it was a means of escape. It allows for an author or a reader to escape into a world of rhymes and words. It is like a fantasy. Poems allow people to use creativity to convey feelings and ideas, and reading them or writing them frees people from reality a bit. It allows people to free themselves from stress, worry, and restraint. If someone has something to say, poetry allows them to say it in a creative way that is not easily conveyed in many other forms. I find poetry to be an escape from everyday life and stress. Thus poetry is necessary for humans because everyone needs a way to escape form life from time to time, and poetry allows for that.
-C. Lenhoff 2nd period
In his TEDTalk, Stephen Burt emphasizes the conveyance of emotion in poetry. This is one of the topics he spent quite some time explaining. He told his audience that poetry is one of the best ways to convey and express emotion; new and old. He explains that he becomes frustrated about a new feeling until he is able to put in words and describe exactly how he is feeling at the moment and that is one of the most important things to understand about the need for poetry.
ReplyDeleteSecond, Burt talks about how poetry is a great avenue in which to remember and commemorate someone who is deceased. It is a way to use words to put someone in the shoes of another person. The use of different techniques allows the author to create different feelings and environments for the reader to immerse themselves in and actually replicate the mindset of the character in which they are trying to describe.
Burt also talks about the dissection of poetry quite a bit. He made a joke about emailing the author and getting approval, but since that isn’t always applicable, it’s okay to not know. That’s the beauty of poetry. Even though the author has a certain purpose and intention in writing a piece, it is ultimately up to interpretation and can evoke different feelings in different readers depending on the ambiguity of the poem’s meaning. Some are more straight forward and some are left to ponder over.
Lastly, from a personal perspective, poetry is expression in its truest form. For some, writing poetry is an outlet that allows a person to wind down and relax, just as music or a sport is for someone else. But poetry holds a special quality in that you start with a blank paper and you can create whatever your heart is feeling at the time. It is such a true form of expression because the author is the sole person in charge of the outcome, there is no interfering or judgment from anyone else. This is something important for all to experience and learn because without complete and true expression, a person is always affected by an outside source and is never the sole guide to the outcome.
-Gettle B, 2*
There are many things that poetry does for us, on of those things is that it has the ability to portray emotions. There are times in life were word the only way that we can communicate with other is words. Poetry uses techniques and patterns to make us feel a certain type of way. Poetry helps us to deal with the things that we sometimes do not want to deal with. For example death is a subject people spend skirting around, yet it seems to be one of the most common subjects in poems. The words are put in such an artful manner that we are able to see everything even death as beautiful. Sometimes we do not have the ability to form out own words and thoughts but someone else is able to describe how we feel so perfectly. Sharing a poem is easy it doesn’t take more than a few seconds and it is easier than trying to find the right words to describe ones emotions. The last thing that is said is poet’s ability to take such a large subject and shrink it down into something smaller. Back to the idea of death, it is such a large idea but poets are able to take it and make it into one small simple fact. Poets have the ability to take something that has such large importance and make it manageable for us humans to deal with.
ReplyDeletePoetry is so often raw emotion. Poetry and songs are the way that people are able to make connections with other people. When you listen to a song or read a poem you are able to understand what that person is feeling without ever having known them. We all have songs we listen to or poems we read when we are sad. It is the way that we know that in this huge scary world we are not alone. It causes us to realize that there is always someone else out there that knows exactly how we feel.
A Sansone, 2nd period
In this TEDTalk, Burt argues for the necessity of poetry for human existence. The first thing that Burt says in his talk is how poetry causes emotion in its reader. Poets have a way of putting these emotions into words. Another thing Burt mentions is that these emotions can vary from reader to reader, depending on where they are coming from. Though poems can have different personal interpretations, Burt also mentions that poetry can be a bridge between cultures, time periods, and people.
ReplyDeleteI find poetry to be very beautiful. I like the rhythm from line to line; I like the creative use of literary devices; I love the power of words. Without poetry, humans would have no way to express emotion, nor the ability to bring them to a physical sense.
K. Brav 7/8*
Poetry in its truest form is all consuming. It interrupts our daily lives and bring us happiness, joy, sadness, defeat, struggle, understanding and so much more. However, poetry teaches us to cope with this. Stephen Burt in Ted Talk reveals the idea that poetry helps many people deal with the topic of death. The emotion of this topic is generally felt by each and every one of us. Poetry allows this topic to be discussed and dealt with. It teaches us to enjoy our lives now, or helps us to say goodbye and let go. It helps us get past the morbid side of the subject and go on with life.
ReplyDeletePoetry is also a prime connection through the generations. It can help people connect to the past and the future and allows all areas of life come together. For example the poem written by A.E Housman, Burt discusses, is also discussed in science fiction. This poem brings the aspect of literature and science together. The poem reveals points similar to those of scientific nature such as human patterns though time.
Whenever I read a poem, I can instantly connect with the people, memory or nature in the poem. I am able to develop a relationship with the text. Poetry gets inside the minds of its readers and helps them to see the internal aspects of daily life that we do not always think about. It helps us to see real emotions and feelings that perhaps the normal person is afraid to address.
Poetry, although sometimes hard to comprehend, allows us to use our minds to uncover the meanings of not only poems but all pieces of literature. By dissecting different lines and stanzas in poems, we gain the ability to do the same to just about everything else. Poetry teaches us that there is a deeper meaning behind a set a words. Every word has a strategic, definite meaning. Poetry is essential to life. It is timeless and ever changing, all at the same time. While poetry differs through specific events and decades, it still educates us on the same topic and issues.
Cika, M 2
I am both a reader and a writer of poetry. I think that poetic writing is a form of expression and communication. Poetry can express things in a way that normal language sometimes just can’t. It creates a common ground; a shared vulnerability and that is a unique and beautiful thing. They can change a point of view and force us to see the world through the eyes of someone else.
ReplyDeleteOne big thing that Stephen Burt talks about is poetry’s ability to connect people not only through emotions but through time and whole centuries. I can read a poem by Edgar Allen Poe or Virginia Wolfe and know that the feelings that those words invoke in me were once felt by others readers far before my time and would continue to be felt and analyzed. The word choice and complexity of the writing’s structure can communicate fare after even the writer had intended it to.
Another thing that Burt talks about and that I personally love about poetry is that there is no right or wrong way to analyze it. It is versatile and that is very important. The same set of words and lines and verses can mean completely different things to completely different people. How poetry is interpreted is more like music than how one would approach writing and literature. It is less of a brain-led line of thinking and something that is more felt. This view can be impacted by your own life experiences, your knowledge of the writer himself, or even where you’re reading. It is a subjective series of thoughts, and that just adds to the wonder and timelessness of the work.
The last thing about poetry that Burt talked about and that I agree with wholeheartedly is that it’s not something that people often forget. From Silverstein to Poe, these stories and ideas and emotions stick with us (and not just because they rhyme.) They have a unique impact on everyone, and I think that is what makes poetic writing so memorable.
So yes, I think that poetry is incredibly important to our society and the literary world as a whole, but it is also an acquired taste. Even the best poets and poems will not be appreciated by someone that chooses not to open their mind to them. It makes us think twice about the way we view the world and more than that, the way we often view ourselves.
- Graf, A. 2*
Stephen Burt states meaningful concepts pertaining to poems. What stuck out to me especially, was when he said,"When you read a poem, you can imagine someone speaking to you". I do this a lot with songs, but it is not so much that the artist is singing to me, it is more of my connection with the words. For poems it is different because it is the actuallity of the text and a certain person saying the words written to you directly. "You look to poems when you want to remember something" and whether this may be a good or bad memory, it can help one cope with the feelings. For me personally, I turn to artistic measures in times of low, and poetry is something that I can connect to. There is not one specific meaning to this work of writing, and "all we can do is look at poems and guess...if you're wrong about something in the poem, nothing bad will happen". This I enjoy especially, because it is up for your own interpretation on what you want the words to stand for. Most English teachers do not grade on the 'correct idea' of a text (because it may not even exist), rather that the student states their thinking and has support to back it up.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to read poetry because it is a way to connect people of various ideas and to intertwine them into today's society. Poetry is a work of art and lets the writer be free to take what is going on in their mind and put it on a paper for others to relate to and use to aid them in their own way.
Asturi V, 7/8
In TEDTalk, Stephen Burt discusses the importance of poetry in a literary sense and from a personal perspective. One of the topics that Burt hones in on is poetry’s ability to keep people in touch with their emotions and with reality. “Poetry helps us with the reality that we are all going to die.” Although Burt said this somewhat facetiously, poetry can in fact help people in times of grieving the loss of others and with the fact that all our time must eventually end.
ReplyDeletePoetry also shares news. People can use poetry to share ideas and thoughts. Although poetry can be abstract often more times than not, it holds deeper meaning than what is present on the surface. This concept reminds me of unpeeling the layers of books that we have practiced recently in class. Just as in novels, each stanza must be unraveled to see the whole picture.
Burt then transitions into the ability of poems to be ambiguous. This attribute of poetry is what makes it stand apart from the rest of the literary world. Burt discusses the multiple analyses of the poem The Garden by Rae Armantrout and how interpretation can range from an ode to love to a discussion about abuse. Each person who reads this poem or any other poem may find a different meaning behind the words, based on their own interpretations and personal experiences.
Although Stephen Burt covered many of the reasons as to why poetry is needed, I think the main reason that poetry is needed is that it evokes emotion. Poems help people feel something in a way that songs and books cannot. Several simple stanzas can be loaded with deep meanings and feelings that resonate under layers. Poetry can be applicable to any emotion you are feeling, which is what makes it unique.
Poetry allows the reader to understand things that cannot be answered in spoken words. They also can speak for us, according to Ted. It can speak for you and answer questions that lie deep inside one’s mind. The questions that are presented in one’s personal mind can be answered in poetry, whether it is right or wrong. The mind moves faster than the mouth and often individuals are not able to truly say all that they want when speaking. However for poetry there can be chosen limits of what one may write. A poet may write a sonnet of haiku which makes it more challenging for them to express their words, yet it makes their meaning more powerful. Those who condense their lines in poetry must be selective in words and details, unlike when speaking. When someone speaks for a long time they can sometimes run off course.
ReplyDeleteThat is another concept about poetry: it doesn’t have to be correct and is open to interpretation. He states this because there are many different perspectives of how one finds poetry. For Ted, he read science fiction works and made connections to science fiction works and poetry. Poetry goes into many different directions and concepts, appealing to readers in various encrypted messages that can be personally relatable. We need poetry in order to keep the mind individual, meaning, not everyone has the same mindset. With poetry people have different viewpoints to look and share with others.
Ted states that poetry can exaggerate the speed of one’s life, and that can be true. Its unique how someone’s life can be condensed in a small stanza poem. The poem can be read quickly or slowly, but in the end the poem takes a short amount of time to read. Our lives are like this; they are quick and slow at the same time. Personally as a high school student, I once imagined that graduating would take forever to happen. Yet suddenly I realize that time has moved on too fast, and these few months are right around the corner. Reading poetry allows readers to realize the reality of time within life. It shows readers how quickly time can speed up or slow down.
Turnea, Dominic 2nd Period