In our everyday life, the most common usage and purpose of ordinary language is to communicate Information.  But the primary objective that literary works (e.g., novels, plays, poems, and short stories, etc.) are created is to bring us a keen sense and perception of life itself, to widen and sharpen our contacts with our very existence.  In short, the foremost purpose and concern of literary works is to communicate Experience.

Poetry can be roughly defined as a kind of language that says more and says more intensely than does the ordinary language.  In fact, poetry is the most condensed and concentrated form of literature, saying most in the fewest number of words.  It is a means of allowing us, through our own life experience and creative imagination, to live more fully and richly with greater awareness and understanding of our surrounding world. 

Ordinary language is one-dimensional.  It is directed at only Part of the intended listener — his/her understanding of the information conveyed.  Its one and only dimension is intellectual.  On the other hand, poetry can be viewed as a multi-dimensional language.  If poetry is used to communicate experience, it must be directed at the Whole person.  It must involve not only one’s intelligence, but also engage one’s senses, emotions, and imagination. 

Poetry achieves these three extra dimensions by drawing on a number of language resources.  Among them are connotation, imagery, metaphor, symbol, paradox, irony, allusion, rhythm, pattern, and sound repetition, etc.

Good Poetry and Great Poetry

In judging any piece of poetry one needs to ask three fundamental questions:

(1)     What is its central purpose?

(2)     How fully has this purpose been accomplished?

(3)     How important is this purpose?

The first question has to be answered in order to understand a poem, and no attempt to judge and evaluate any poem should be made before the central purpose of the poem is well and clearly understood.

If a poem has successfully accomplished what it sets out to do (i.e., the central purpose of the poem is well understood), we can call it a good poem.

Great poetry must, by definition, be good poetry.  Once a poem has been judged as successful on its execution, its final standing in history will rest on the significance of its purpose.  Great poetry engages the whole person in his/her response — intellect, senses, emotions, and imagination.  It seeks not only to entertain the reader but to bring him/her, along with pure pleasure and enjoyment as well as fresh and profound insights, into the very nature of human experience.  Great poetry, in essence, gives its reader a broader and deeper understanding of life itself.

Please enjoy the following beautiful song:

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places -- Johnny Lee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3huC-42N1Gs

Note:  The central points of this short essay are based on the classic book on poetry "Sound and Sense – An Introduction to Poetry" by Laurence Perrine (1969).