! Prosody?

Prosody: it’s about - it means - what poetry does, and how. I guess.. In Greek, it just means ‘tune’. That should give a clue. In Latin, the word they used meant ‘song added to speech’. So ‘poetry’ is pretty well indefinable. It’s – well— whatever it means to you. And how the hell it does that. There are rules but, it finds its own. For one thing above all really matters: poetry is what it does. What it does. If it doesn't do anything for you that's it. No theories – just that. Be glad. Aristotle tried to help with his ‘Poetics’. Good on drama. But poetry? Let’s fast forward to Ezra Pound: poetry’s function is, he said, ‘to charge words with meaning to the utmost possible degree’. Now put all this together and I believe it’s saying, poetry’s not - never was - shouldn’t be - couldn’t be - just words on the page, like this, but, it's me saying them to you, strongly, here and now, charging them with meaning to the utmost possible degree.. So if your child comes home with as homework, ‘Analyse this poem by..’ - Angelou, Silverstein, Neruda, Hughes of both hues black and white, Milligan, Budowski, Pralutsky – tell them, go back tomorrow and say politely, ‘Teach, Dad’s a practising poet and he says, why not have a class comp in reading that poem aloud, and who makes most sense of it and keeps us listening down to the tips of our toes; and by the time we’ve all had a go and decided who’s the best, we’ll remember it for the rest of our lives and maybe, Teach, not need to ‘analyse’ it much and only after that? ' So here’s to the next poem that you read aloud, or write to read aloud, charging it with meaning to the utmost possible degree.