The Purpose Of Poetry: A Response Question & Answer Sample

“The Purpose of Poetry” is an interesting article. While some of the ideas about the purpose of poetry seemed too cryptic for my taste, I found myself agreeing with others. The following sentence interested me the most: “When power corrupts, poetry cleanses, for art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.” I agree that successful poetry comments on basic traits and habits of human beings, and so serves well encouraging readers to gain perspective of what is important. Furthermore, I think that good poetry reminds readers about fundamental aspects of reality that people often try to avoid thinking about; examples of such aspects include the passing of time, loss, and mortality. While daily life in a busy society tends to detract from such basic human truths, poetry hones in on them, disregarding trivial matters such as material possessions or jobs.
I found “Reading a Poem: 20 Strategies” to be an entertaining article. When I started reading it, in particular at Number 4, I was ready to hate the article. I found it presumptuous and patronizing. I didn’t like being told that I, and everyone else, was always looking for an excuse to stop reading a poem. After all, I enjoy reading poems. However once I had read to the end, I found the piece was lighter than I had first assumed. I liked the simplicity of Number 5, and I completely agree that it is an important distinction. My biggest criticism of the poetry world is that it can seem elitist and people who don’t know a lot about poetry can feel alienated and excluded from it. Put simply, poetry can make people feel stupid and it seems that the poetry world does little to comfort such people. In fact, there is plenty of “accessible” poetry, but for some reason it is not as famous as the obscure poetry, and therefore many people aren’t aware of it. I would like there to be a big effort on publicizing accessible poetry, so that more of the world could be involved.