Poetry

Where can poetry be found? Can poetry be more than the written word? When first asked this question, the first thing that came to my mind is art. Art for me is poetry. The story behind the painting is poetic. The way the colors meet and create a story is poetic. When I look at a piece of art, I automatically want to know the treasure that is captured on canvas, but also the story of the artist and why he painted what he did.

So what is poetry? In the Merriam-Webster dictionary it says that one of the definitions of poetry is "something likened to poetry especially in beauty of expressions. Poetry is something that brings out a feeling. It causes you to feel inspired. This is exactly what art does for me. If we look at an actual poem you can't just read it. If you do that you will usually receive just the bareness of the words. But the second you dive into them and analyze what the author is saying and look at the time it was written, a whole world is opened up to you. If you just look at a piece of art, you sometimes don't get anything from it. The second you dive into the background of the piece, you make a connection with the painting and its story. One of my favorite paintings is called The Taking of Christ by Caravaggio. Its a dramatic painting of Christ being taken away right before he is to be nailed to the cross. By itself it is an incredibly moving and powerful painting. I read an entire book just about this one painting and finally got to see it in person this summer in Dublin. The second I saw it, my connection with the painting was heightened. I couldn't turn away from it. Was my reaction and connection the same as the 30 some people around me? Is it okay for me to find poetry in that one piece of art and not for someone else?

If Poetry is meant to inspire, everyone is going to feel different about it. Just like some people love a certain musician or book, and I absolutely do not, doesn't mean that we don't know what a good song or book is. Poetry is subjective just like most things in this world. Isn't that the beauty of it then? If you truly look at what you love and hate, thats what makes you you. You are poetry! You feel and inspire yourself and others around you!  You may not rhyme, or talk in verse, but everything about us is poetic. Just like art has a story, we have stories.

Now this just got deep, but truly everything around us is poetry. If you ask what makes something poetic, every single person is going to have a different answer and opinion. So if we look around us and find something that is "likened to poetry especially in beauty of expression", we can have thousands of little things that are poetic everyday.