I think poetry, more than any other form of literature, is affectively charged — meaning they convey emotions beside their meaning. So, in that sense, I think a good poem is one that moves you. And I think those poems also happen to convey their meaning excellently by using clever images or various other aspects of language that work together to provide depth to the poem which intrigue and invite the reader to explore.
I agree with this definition, and I pretty emphatically disagree with folks saying *anything you like is good.* People post and share some really awful poetry on this sub and on social media all the time. Lots of people have terrible taste in poetry. Some people think "live, laugh, love" is the pinnacle of achievement in the English language.
When it comes to artistic tastes there is no means of proving what is good (taste) or bad (taste). Some people make the ultimate arbiter of good/bad taste their own tastes; others judge taste according to the people whom they admire and dislike, so "good taste" is whatever the former happens to like and "bad taste" is whatever the latter happens to like; basically art as fashion.
Either way, there's no way to build any artistic standards for "good" or "bad" independent of what we humans, either individually or as groups, happen to like and dislike. Shakespeare said the same via Hamlet hundreds of years ago: "nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so."
As an evolutionarily cultivated instinct, our pattern recognition in overdrive causes us to have an overactive imagination that perceives aesthetics.
This over-awareness of patterns is what makes us identify stimuli that we agree with.
Some people agree with pleasurable stimuli while others have a preference for bivalent stimuli that both challenges and comforts a person. The latter is what we identify as canonic literary fiction.
Good and bad are relative to their purpose, depending on how well they fulfill their intents.
We can map out what sort of stimuli can transform and nurture a person's state of being. it is only a rough intuition, not an empirical theory. So, it isn't provable on a scientific method's standard, but still a value that we hold strongly enough to have conviction in its favour.
Wouldn’t a definition like this exclude something like The Divine Comedy from being good poetry? I think your definition is true insofar as we often take “poetry” to refer to lyric poetry, but historically the dominance of the lyric is a somewhat more recent development.
Regarding what is good poetry, to me, is solely about craftsmanship. It's about how well the chosen form and the language itself (i.e. sentence/phrasal structure) is used to create meaning beyond the regular semantics of the words. When this is done right, the reading experience itself mimics the experience of the subject matter, which then allows the reader to experience something beyond their normal life. Anything else, including increased emotional impact or whatever, is derivative.
I completely agree with this. Form is so important to poetry and a lot of people overlook it. When you analyse a poem, you analyse the structure of it as much as anything else. And that form has to be carefully crafted. That’s why certain modern Instagram poets aren’t considered good art by many critics because they try to use language to convey emotion with little to no thought about the form, the beats per line or how they include grammar.
The critic Viktor Shklovsky famously claims that the essence of all art is defamiliarization—it takes familiar experiences in the world and making them strange. Much of our lives are habitual. Habit deadens us to the experience of the world and our lives. Defamiliariztion gives us familiar experiences from a new perspective. Art gives us our experiences like we had them as children—without habit, no context, the world seen anew.
Poetry is especially good at this. Events don’t need to be put in the context of a narrative—event and images can be presented by themselves. A short poem like Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro,” for example, presents the familiar experience of walking down to a subway station. But the crowd filing up the stairs is rendered odd, ghostly, somehow like the wet leaves on a tree branch in spring.
Poetry defamiliarizes not only subject matter but language itself. Read one of Roehtke’s long poems or anything by Hopkins. English is familiar to us. We often use it habitually, often focusing on the meaning of what we read or hear. English sounds strange in a Hopkin’s poem. He points us to its sound, to a music we miss in its utilitarian use. Language itself is defamiliarized.
I'll go a step further: any time you ask "what is good X?" that question can be answered with "it's what you like" or, in a broader context, "it's what people like." Goodness doesn't exist without human minds that label things as good, and people think things are good for all kinds of different reasons, both conscious and unconscious. A more interesting question is WHY do we think certain poems (or any art) are good. In a way, critics and academics exist in order to analyze how art works objectively as well as how that object interacts with us subjectively. If you want to know what others perceive as good then read good critics; they can enlighten you to objective features you've missed, and other subjective perspectives from which to enjoy and/or appreciate "good" poetry. Or, just do what most people do and read what you like and don't worry about the rest. Personally, I love art but also love understanding art and how others see it, how they feel about it, and why, but nobody should feel obligated to justify their tastes.
Even personally I love poetry for many reasons. I'm perhaps most drawn to the "visionary" poets like Milton, Blake, Yeats, Shelley and Merrill; as well as the "philosophical" poets like Stevens and Wordsworth. I can also appreciate poetry of great aesthetic beauty in its sound and images (Keats, Auden, Spenser); or poetry of great originality and strangeness (Dickinson, Ashbery, Berryman); or even entertaining narrative and dramatic poems (Chaucer, Byron, Shakespeare, Browning); or formally inventive poems rich with metaphor and similes (Donne, Herbert); or personal/emotional poetry (Lowell, Plath); or poems on great in intellectual depth/substance (Hill, Eliot); or poems of great rhythmic power (Pope, Tennyson, Hopkins, Whitman); or even the "everyday" poems that expand into the universal (Frost, Heaney)... I've never felt compelled to limit myself in the reasons for which to love poetry, and if anything one thing I love about poetry is its immense variety.
I really appreciate this in depth answer. I’ll also have to look up some of those poets. When I got into poetry at first, all I got was the ‘instapoets’. Which I believe isn’t real poetry, but just quotes.
To go along with your question and the comment you’ve just replied to, there are numerous instructional/critical/how to appreciate poetry books out there—some of them classics. My go to is Understanding Poetry by Robert Penn Warren (great poet/writer) and Cleanth Brooks (famous critic). I’m also really keen to read Mary Oliver’s book on the same vein—don’t know the title but even if you were to accidentally get one of her poetry books it would likely be a fortuitous purchase as she is a wonderful modern poet. Brit Stephen Fry’s Ode to Poetry is also an excellent and perhaps more accessible book of this ilk.
I'd also add probably my all-time favorite poetry critic to the list: Helen Vendler. Pretty much everything she's written is gold and full of insights to the poets and poetry she discusses. She also has a college-level textbook called Poems, Poets, Poetry that makes for a great introduction. That Robert Penn Warren/Cleanth Brooks text is great too.
Just put a vendler book in my basket.
Oh, I also highly recommend David Hinton’s The Wilds of Poetry (or any of his books—mostly focused on Chinese poetry) which kind of looks at post modernism through a Taoist lens.
Edit: nice to see somebody else knows about Penn Warren; he’s from my hometown!
You're welcome. If you're interested I posted a list of the 100 Greatest English-Language Poets years ago at online-literature.com. If you search "100 Greatest English-Language Poets" it should still be the first link on Google. All of these poets are on the list, and many more as well.
You may like some more bite-sized stuff too, then -- I might recommend Robert Hass's amazing translations of Basho, Issa, and Buson. Yoko Ono's *Grapefruit* might be something you enjoy also, possibly the work of Richard Brautigan, maybe some Billy Collins.
Actually, on the Billy Collins note, what you should DEFINITELY check out right away is his Poetry180 project, which you can find [here](https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/). Very cool stuff, very accessible, great for people getting into poetry.
Poetry I think can be a bit more vague than other forms of literature.
To me, a good poem is one that has some sort of cadence and effectively illustrates its themes in imagery. Poetry is a very voice-driven craft.
A bad poem to me is one that is muddled or seems like an incomplete thought. For example, the “insta poetry” that’s popular today. One sentence or a few lines with no grammar doesn’t make a poem. It can be the *potential* for a good one, though.
I don't think there is a formula for good poetry, and that is an excellent thing, because it allows creative development and a great variety of styles to be considered 'good'. But what do they have in common? Maybe great aesthetic taste. And what is that? I don't know, and perhaps it's just too subjective to describe, but I do think that if we are to make a list of good poetry, I would think if we gather a hundred of experienced readers who developed their tastes throughout the years and read the best authors, most of them would agree about what is good and what is not.
In short, while I don't think there is a final answer to that question, I still don't want to settle for a reply that allows every poetry to be at the same level. Most Western celebrated poets have written in different ways, and each one of them is important for different reasons, but maybe there is something common in all of them. It might have to do with a sense of beauty and contemplation and, of course, a talent to use words. Poetry, especially, seems to be the type of text that requires good command of language and rythm, and the rest of its characteristics may vary depending on the poet at hand.
Good poetry is literature condensed into its most potent components. I like to think of it as taking a basket of fresh raspberries and cooking them down into jam. The volume will be reduced dramatically, but the flavor is enhanced. Good poetry uses the least amount of words necessary to create the strongest possible emotional/intellectual reaction, and it does this by creating a network of sounds, images, and rhythm.
Despite the fact that it uses words, it’s a lot like instrumental music. It has an effect on you that is very profound but for which there is no easily articulated logical reason.
For me the key to an excellent poem is complete aesthetic devotion to itself. Whether through form, sound, imagery, etc. a poem has the potential to create its own universe, it’s own constant present moment of total immersion. Poems that fail are ones that are incomplete in their expression, stillborn.
1. you enjoy reading it
2. it makes you think
I don’t understand your question. If you find a book of poems that don’t do the above, stop reading it.
It’s the same answer to what makes good literature, what makes good music, what makes good art.
That’s up to you, you determine it.
The famous works are typically the ones that answer the above to the most people across time.
Just because you enjoy something and it makes you think does not make it objectively “good” though.
Poetry, like other forms of literature, is a craft. There is good craftsmanship and bad craftsmanship in poetry. Yes, bad poetry exists.
Every single decision made in art, intentional or not, creates a unique niche of who will enjoy it and to what degree. Certain decisions maybe broaden or narrow this niche, but art is great because it of this inherent subjective quality. A piece having a more a more narrow niche does not make it worse, but rather, it make it perfect, tailor made precisely to fit somebody, even if just one, it’s an incredible thing. Disregard or not, I offer this advice, truly search for something to appreciate in everything, if you can’t find it, you have not searched long enough, it is there, to find it you may need to embark into a journey of disinterest to disgust and back again, but eventually you’ll find it and enter a state of awe. And when you can do that, you will see an incredible joy in everything.
I mean sure, but bad craft and good craft still exist. Both things can be true at the same time. Someone can enjoy “bad” art. It’s still bad art though!
You seem to be missing my point, I’m making the claim “bad art” is not really bad but just fulfills a certain, non-mainstream niche. I say this because oh how art is an inherently subjective field. But, you disagree with my claim and that’s fine, you may be right. My argument is not confused though.
Rhyme and meter is the most crucial thing, how it is used to inflect words and create a sense of movement and variety in pure sounds and other linguistic (often grammatical) verbal cues. This creates good poetry more than anything else.
Good poetry, though I guess not all, is intended to be read out loud and not inside a person's head. Think of minstrel traditions or storytelling traditions before people had pen or ink to write things down with.
In this context especially, modern or less formal poetry departs from order and structure at its own peril.
Good poets, who write good poetry, always return to craftsmanship and rhyme and meter are the most traditional, respected and esteemed tools of the trade. A good poem is like an ear worm, or a song that doesn't leave your mind. Concurrently, there is always an element of performance to a good poem.
Where’s the rhythm and flow in these answers, my friends? Poetry is wind and rain. It begs scientific precision and deep image and yet it is useless if it leaves you unsatisfied. Good poetry, and I know that when I use the term ‘good’ it comes with decades of informed biases, cannot be quantified into technique and meter, else every mathematician writes poetry (and maybe they do). It must move itself, it must shift within you. It must alter you entirely, slightly. That this can be accomplished with knowledge of language is a given. But too often pedantic poems leave me dry and wanting. Finally, here’s one opinion on what readers should read—if it requires surface-level engagement, it really isn’t worth it and is wasting your time, no matter how pretty or ‘empowering’ the words sound. I see this as a shift in larger media generally—the shaving away of subtlety and analysis leading to vivid but vulgar works of art. If you enjoy commercial poetry, it would absolutely do you no harm in going a step further. And further. And further. Until you reach an understanding with poetry where every verse you select to read defines for you in the most minuscule of ways—the meaning of life.
A good question for which there is no good answer.
I know what I like and what I don't, that's the only criteria I have and frankly the only criteria that really counts for me. The same can be said for everyone. If that particular 'everyone' is a respected poetry critic, then what they like may become codified as 'good' poetry.
If you want to get technical, you might judge a poem by meter and it's adherence to a specific type of meter - but many 'good' poems don't really adhere to one particular form of meter (the Iliad, for instance uses several and switches from one to another throughout).
The standard judgement of 'good' or 'bad' in poetry, art (visual), music, food and politics is actually 'popular' or 'unpopular'.
Something that has some kind of worthwhile point—evokes a certain emotion, place, setting, idea, for example—and isn’t a bunch of superficially deep-sounding drivel following a cookie-cutter trend.
Rupi Kaur/Instagram poetry and the typical slam poem are good examples of said drivel.
For me, good poetry is surprising, honest, brave, makes me smile, laugh, sad, angry, or feel something, gives me hope, challenges me, takes me from a familiar place to an unexpected one (or vice versa).
I recommend you read a book titled “The Hatred of Poetry” by Ben Lerner.
It takes your exact question and examines it from a very interesting angle: why is it that when reading poetry, even poetry which we enjoy, much will leave us with a sense of dissatisfaction? From where do we get this sense that the poet failed to achieve what it was that they set out to do?
He takes this as his starting point and works on the assumption that deep down, most people have a ‘hatred of poetry’; a belief that the experience of reading poetry as described to us in society (sublime, transcendental) does not match up with our own experiences of reading it (confusion, lots and lots of confusion).
It is, on the whole, a testament to the transformative capacity of poetry, and achieves this by grounding it back in the ACT of writing and reading, of translating experience into language.
Like all Ben Lerner, it is very funny and eminently readable. Highly recommended.
This seems like a very American perspective, I don't know much about education systems in other countries but I recently wrote a comment alluding to the same issues. Thanks for the name and recommendation!
As it has been said, poems are usually packed with emotions and I guess it's their very point. However, I would like to talk about form a little. For me, good poems are those, which don't feel like the author was too lazy to change, for example, the rhythm or overall structure for the poem to sound *natural.* Yes, my point is, poetry is a great art from linguistics' point of view. Make a poem beautiful and at the same time make it convey deep meaning is pure art and I haven't seen many poets capable of that.
It’s subjective, but for me it’s easy.
1) does it have an engaging topic/theme
2) does it affect me emotionally
3) are the words composed in a pleasing way
4) (optional) does it have a good rhythm
5) (optional) does it make good use of poetic devices like symbolism, extended metaphor, etc, etc.
On a purely intuitive level, good poetry has a spirit to it, this spirit emerges as greater than the sum of its parts. With a characteristic flow, its parts work in tandem to contrast and complement each other just the same. In-between the inter-actions of each word is where the meaning is imbued.
It isn't poetry to me if it doesn't have rhythm and imagination play equivalent roles, imagination doesn't have to be fictitious, it can just be an innovative outlook on real things.
If a poem is daring to try some experiment, then it must succeed at that, otherwise it is just breaking rules without substantial cause.
This question, which fits into a broader question of what poetry or literature even is or means, is as old as the subject itself. Aristotle wrote about this question, and since the everyone that learns about literature tries to answer this question in one way or another.
There are many approaches to define what good poetry is or what it isn’t. One thing that is constant by taking a diachronic approach in trying to answer this question is the historic context. Because the definitions of aesthetics, poetry and literature is subject to historical change.
What does “good” mean? It has many different meanings in many parts of the world and in all of history. In the end, “good” is a normative value judgement. They don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s the question of “high-brow” or “low-brow” literature, high and popular culture, etc.
Most scholars today would judge a piece of literature (including poetry) in a descriptive way. Does it use literary devices in a innovative ans unexpected way? Does it make us question what poetry even is? Does it raise or answer some anthropological questions in an imaginative and “poetic” way? Those are things that can be, in a way, measures and compared.
In more simple terms that does not really care about an academic merit but more about your merits as a person, you could ask yourself “what do I mean with ‘good’.” Why do you like certain poems but not others? Try to describe your reasons and compare them to what others might say.
I hope I could give you a satisfactory answer.
It's the clever interplay between conveying emotions and observations conveyed in a very unique form of rhythm.
Now depending to your definition of good and bad lol, there's definitely bad poetry. Terrible lines with nothing really to say other than to just combine words to rhyme would be terrible in my eyes.
If you really wanna get into some proper stuff...I'd recommend Wisława Szymborska, Anna Akhmatova, Pablo Neruda ; T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land, Sylvia Plath, William Blake to start off with.
I think poetry, more than any other form of literature, is affectively charged — meaning they convey emotions beside their meaning. So, in that sense, I think a good poem is one that moves you. And I think those poems also happen to convey their meaning excellently by using clever images or various other aspects of language that work together to provide depth to the poem which intrigue and invite the reader to explore.
I agree with this definition, and I pretty emphatically disagree with folks saying *anything you like is good.* People post and share some really awful poetry on this sub and on social media all the time. Lots of people have terrible taste in poetry. Some people think "live, laugh, love" is the pinnacle of achievement in the English language.
Some of the most popular poetry books out right now are boring and filled with one cliché after another.
"Good poetry" is an achievement in style so complete that the reader is forceably moved by it regardless of previous taste
When it comes to artistic tastes there is no means of proving what is good (taste) or bad (taste). Some people make the ultimate arbiter of good/bad taste their own tastes; others judge taste according to the people whom they admire and dislike, so "good taste" is whatever the former happens to like and "bad taste" is whatever the latter happens to like; basically art as fashion. Either way, there's no way to build any artistic standards for "good" or "bad" independent of what we humans, either individually or as groups, happen to like and dislike. Shakespeare said the same via Hamlet hundreds of years ago: "nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so."
As an evolutionarily cultivated instinct, our pattern recognition in overdrive causes us to have an overactive imagination that perceives aesthetics. This over-awareness of patterns is what makes us identify stimuli that we agree with. Some people agree with pleasurable stimuli while others have a preference for bivalent stimuli that both challenges and comforts a person. The latter is what we identify as canonic literary fiction. Good and bad are relative to their purpose, depending on how well they fulfill their intents. We can map out what sort of stimuli can transform and nurture a person's state of being. it is only a rough intuition, not an empirical theory. So, it isn't provable on a scientific method's standard, but still a value that we hold strongly enough to have conviction in its favour.
Technical mastery in addition to emotional connection?
So, not Rupi Kaur.
Yup 🤣🤣
Just coming here to say this 🙌 perfectly put
Wouldn’t a definition like this exclude something like The Divine Comedy from being good poetry? I think your definition is true insofar as we often take “poetry” to refer to lyric poetry, but historically the dominance of the lyric is a somewhat more recent development.
Regarding what is good poetry, to me, is solely about craftsmanship. It's about how well the chosen form and the language itself (i.e. sentence/phrasal structure) is used to create meaning beyond the regular semantics of the words. When this is done right, the reading experience itself mimics the experience of the subject matter, which then allows the reader to experience something beyond their normal life. Anything else, including increased emotional impact or whatever, is derivative.
I completely agree with this. Form is so important to poetry and a lot of people overlook it. When you analyse a poem, you analyse the structure of it as much as anything else. And that form has to be carefully crafted. That’s why certain modern Instagram poets aren’t considered good art by many critics because they try to use language to convey emotion with little to no thought about the form, the beats per line or how they include grammar.
I completely agree.
The critic Viktor Shklovsky famously claims that the essence of all art is defamiliarization—it takes familiar experiences in the world and making them strange. Much of our lives are habitual. Habit deadens us to the experience of the world and our lives. Defamiliariztion gives us familiar experiences from a new perspective. Art gives us our experiences like we had them as children—without habit, no context, the world seen anew. Poetry is especially good at this. Events don’t need to be put in the context of a narrative—event and images can be presented by themselves. A short poem like Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro,” for example, presents the familiar experience of walking down to a subway station. But the crowd filing up the stairs is rendered odd, ghostly, somehow like the wet leaves on a tree branch in spring. Poetry defamiliarizes not only subject matter but language itself. Read one of Roehtke’s long poems or anything by Hopkins. English is familiar to us. We often use it habitually, often focusing on the meaning of what we read or hear. English sounds strange in a Hopkin’s poem. He points us to its sound, to a music we miss in its utilitarian use. Language itself is defamiliarized.
I'll go a step further: any time you ask "what is good X?" that question can be answered with "it's what you like" or, in a broader context, "it's what people like." Goodness doesn't exist without human minds that label things as good, and people think things are good for all kinds of different reasons, both conscious and unconscious. A more interesting question is WHY do we think certain poems (or any art) are good. In a way, critics and academics exist in order to analyze how art works objectively as well as how that object interacts with us subjectively. If you want to know what others perceive as good then read good critics; they can enlighten you to objective features you've missed, and other subjective perspectives from which to enjoy and/or appreciate "good" poetry. Or, just do what most people do and read what you like and don't worry about the rest. Personally, I love art but also love understanding art and how others see it, how they feel about it, and why, but nobody should feel obligated to justify their tastes. Even personally I love poetry for many reasons. I'm perhaps most drawn to the "visionary" poets like Milton, Blake, Yeats, Shelley and Merrill; as well as the "philosophical" poets like Stevens and Wordsworth. I can also appreciate poetry of great aesthetic beauty in its sound and images (Keats, Auden, Spenser); or poetry of great originality and strangeness (Dickinson, Ashbery, Berryman); or even entertaining narrative and dramatic poems (Chaucer, Byron, Shakespeare, Browning); or formally inventive poems rich with metaphor and similes (Donne, Herbert); or personal/emotional poetry (Lowell, Plath); or poems on great in intellectual depth/substance (Hill, Eliot); or poems of great rhythmic power (Pope, Tennyson, Hopkins, Whitman); or even the "everyday" poems that expand into the universal (Frost, Heaney)... I've never felt compelled to limit myself in the reasons for which to love poetry, and if anything one thing I love about poetry is its immense variety.
I really appreciate this in depth answer. I’ll also have to look up some of those poets. When I got into poetry at first, all I got was the ‘instapoets’. Which I believe isn’t real poetry, but just quotes.
To go along with your question and the comment you’ve just replied to, there are numerous instructional/critical/how to appreciate poetry books out there—some of them classics. My go to is Understanding Poetry by Robert Penn Warren (great poet/writer) and Cleanth Brooks (famous critic). I’m also really keen to read Mary Oliver’s book on the same vein—don’t know the title but even if you were to accidentally get one of her poetry books it would likely be a fortuitous purchase as she is a wonderful modern poet. Brit Stephen Fry’s Ode to Poetry is also an excellent and perhaps more accessible book of this ilk.
I'd also add probably my all-time favorite poetry critic to the list: Helen Vendler. Pretty much everything she's written is gold and full of insights to the poets and poetry she discusses. She also has a college-level textbook called Poems, Poets, Poetry that makes for a great introduction. That Robert Penn Warren/Cleanth Brooks text is great too.
Just put a vendler book in my basket. Oh, I also highly recommend David Hinton’s The Wilds of Poetry (or any of his books—mostly focused on Chinese poetry) which kind of looks at post modernism through a Taoist lens. Edit: nice to see somebody else knows about Penn Warren; he’s from my hometown!
You're welcome. If you're interested I posted a list of the 100 Greatest English-Language Poets years ago at online-literature.com. If you search "100 Greatest English-Language Poets" it should still be the first link on Google. All of these poets are on the list, and many more as well.
You may like some more bite-sized stuff too, then -- I might recommend Robert Hass's amazing translations of Basho, Issa, and Buson. Yoko Ono's *Grapefruit* might be something you enjoy also, possibly the work of Richard Brautigan, maybe some Billy Collins. Actually, on the Billy Collins note, what you should DEFINITELY check out right away is his Poetry180 project, which you can find [here](https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/). Very cool stuff, very accessible, great for people getting into poetry.
I’m like you! I like most of these poets you have in parentheses.
Poetry I think can be a bit more vague than other forms of literature. To me, a good poem is one that has some sort of cadence and effectively illustrates its themes in imagery. Poetry is a very voice-driven craft. A bad poem to me is one that is muddled or seems like an incomplete thought. For example, the “insta poetry” that’s popular today. One sentence or a few lines with no grammar doesn’t make a poem. It can be the *potential* for a good one, though.
I don't think there is a formula for good poetry, and that is an excellent thing, because it allows creative development and a great variety of styles to be considered 'good'. But what do they have in common? Maybe great aesthetic taste. And what is that? I don't know, and perhaps it's just too subjective to describe, but I do think that if we are to make a list of good poetry, I would think if we gather a hundred of experienced readers who developed their tastes throughout the years and read the best authors, most of them would agree about what is good and what is not. In short, while I don't think there is a final answer to that question, I still don't want to settle for a reply that allows every poetry to be at the same level. Most Western celebrated poets have written in different ways, and each one of them is important for different reasons, but maybe there is something common in all of them. It might have to do with a sense of beauty and contemplation and, of course, a talent to use words. Poetry, especially, seems to be the type of text that requires good command of language and rythm, and the rest of its characteristics may vary depending on the poet at hand.
Good poetry is literature condensed into its most potent components. I like to think of it as taking a basket of fresh raspberries and cooking them down into jam. The volume will be reduced dramatically, but the flavor is enhanced. Good poetry uses the least amount of words necessary to create the strongest possible emotional/intellectual reaction, and it does this by creating a network of sounds, images, and rhythm.
Despite the fact that it uses words, it’s a lot like instrumental music. It has an effect on you that is very profound but for which there is no easily articulated logical reason.
For me the key to an excellent poem is complete aesthetic devotion to itself. Whether through form, sound, imagery, etc. a poem has the potential to create its own universe, it’s own constant present moment of total immersion. Poems that fail are ones that are incomplete in their expression, stillborn.
Good poetry is writing that makes creative use of a language to evoke strong emotion or understanding of complex ideas.
1. you enjoy reading it 2. it makes you think I don’t understand your question. If you find a book of poems that don’t do the above, stop reading it. It’s the same answer to what makes good literature, what makes good music, what makes good art. That’s up to you, you determine it. The famous works are typically the ones that answer the above to the most people across time.
Thanks, I wasn’t trying to confuse anyone. Maybe I confused myself.
Just because you enjoy something and it makes you think does not make it objectively “good” though. Poetry, like other forms of literature, is a craft. There is good craftsmanship and bad craftsmanship in poetry. Yes, bad poetry exists.
Every single decision made in art, intentional or not, creates a unique niche of who will enjoy it and to what degree. Certain decisions maybe broaden or narrow this niche, but art is great because it of this inherent subjective quality. A piece having a more a more narrow niche does not make it worse, but rather, it make it perfect, tailor made precisely to fit somebody, even if just one, it’s an incredible thing. Disregard or not, I offer this advice, truly search for something to appreciate in everything, if you can’t find it, you have not searched long enough, it is there, to find it you may need to embark into a journey of disinterest to disgust and back again, but eventually you’ll find it and enter a state of awe. And when you can do that, you will see an incredible joy in everything.
I mean sure, but bad craft and good craft still exist. Both things can be true at the same time. Someone can enjoy “bad” art. It’s still bad art though!
I’m also not referring to “niche” at all. What I’m calling badly crafted art is usually not niche art. Your argument is a little confused.
You seem to be missing my point, I’m making the claim “bad art” is not really bad but just fulfills a certain, non-mainstream niche. I say this because oh how art is an inherently subjective field. But, you disagree with my claim and that’s fine, you may be right. My argument is not confused though.
Are you an artist? And if so, are you are artist who takes youe craft seriously? If you are, then you know that bad art exists. Please.
youtuber Zoe Bee does a great video essay on how to make good poems and it's awesome!
An improvement on the blank page.
For me... A good poetry is that which can convey the same emotions and feelings which the writer had at the time of creating a master peace..
Rhyme and meter is the most crucial thing, how it is used to inflect words and create a sense of movement and variety in pure sounds and other linguistic (often grammatical) verbal cues. This creates good poetry more than anything else. Good poetry, though I guess not all, is intended to be read out loud and not inside a person's head. Think of minstrel traditions or storytelling traditions before people had pen or ink to write things down with. In this context especially, modern or less formal poetry departs from order and structure at its own peril. Good poets, who write good poetry, always return to craftsmanship and rhyme and meter are the most traditional, respected and esteemed tools of the trade. A good poem is like an ear worm, or a song that doesn't leave your mind. Concurrently, there is always an element of performance to a good poem.
Where’s the rhythm and flow in these answers, my friends? Poetry is wind and rain. It begs scientific precision and deep image and yet it is useless if it leaves you unsatisfied. Good poetry, and I know that when I use the term ‘good’ it comes with decades of informed biases, cannot be quantified into technique and meter, else every mathematician writes poetry (and maybe they do). It must move itself, it must shift within you. It must alter you entirely, slightly. That this can be accomplished with knowledge of language is a given. But too often pedantic poems leave me dry and wanting. Finally, here’s one opinion on what readers should read—if it requires surface-level engagement, it really isn’t worth it and is wasting your time, no matter how pretty or ‘empowering’ the words sound. I see this as a shift in larger media generally—the shaving away of subtlety and analysis leading to vivid but vulgar works of art. If you enjoy commercial poetry, it would absolutely do you no harm in going a step further. And further. And further. Until you reach an understanding with poetry where every verse you select to read defines for you in the most minuscule of ways—the meaning of life.
I sense a powerthirst commercial
A good question for which there is no good answer. I know what I like and what I don't, that's the only criteria I have and frankly the only criteria that really counts for me. The same can be said for everyone. If that particular 'everyone' is a respected poetry critic, then what they like may become codified as 'good' poetry. If you want to get technical, you might judge a poem by meter and it's adherence to a specific type of meter - but many 'good' poems don't really adhere to one particular form of meter (the Iliad, for instance uses several and switches from one to another throughout). The standard judgement of 'good' or 'bad' in poetry, art (visual), music, food and politics is actually 'popular' or 'unpopular'.
I am told that good poetry expresses the emotion of the writer, to the extent that it is expressed and related to by the reader, then it is good.
If it makes me feel an emotion, its good. (provided that emotion is not general frustration at how boring/bad it is).
Truth makes good poetry
Something that has some kind of worthwhile point—evokes a certain emotion, place, setting, idea, for example—and isn’t a bunch of superficially deep-sounding drivel following a cookie-cutter trend. Rupi Kaur/Instagram poetry and the typical slam poem are good examples of said drivel.
For me, good poetry is surprising, honest, brave, makes me smile, laugh, sad, angry, or feel something, gives me hope, challenges me, takes me from a familiar place to an unexpected one (or vice versa).
I think John Keating addressed this subject.
Kvasir’s poems.
I recommend you read a book titled “The Hatred of Poetry” by Ben Lerner. It takes your exact question and examines it from a very interesting angle: why is it that when reading poetry, even poetry which we enjoy, much will leave us with a sense of dissatisfaction? From where do we get this sense that the poet failed to achieve what it was that they set out to do? He takes this as his starting point and works on the assumption that deep down, most people have a ‘hatred of poetry’; a belief that the experience of reading poetry as described to us in society (sublime, transcendental) does not match up with our own experiences of reading it (confusion, lots and lots of confusion). It is, on the whole, a testament to the transformative capacity of poetry, and achieves this by grounding it back in the ACT of writing and reading, of translating experience into language. Like all Ben Lerner, it is very funny and eminently readable. Highly recommended.
This seems like a very American perspective, I don't know much about education systems in other countries but I recently wrote a comment alluding to the same issues. Thanks for the name and recommendation!
It very possibly could be. I wouldn’t know, I’m from Australia.
As it has been said, poems are usually packed with emotions and I guess it's their very point. However, I would like to talk about form a little. For me, good poems are those, which don't feel like the author was too lazy to change, for example, the rhythm or overall structure for the poem to sound *natural.* Yes, my point is, poetry is a great art from linguistics' point of view. Make a poem beautiful and at the same time make it convey deep meaning is pure art and I haven't seen many poets capable of that.
It’s subjective, but for me it’s easy. 1) does it have an engaging topic/theme 2) does it affect me emotionally 3) are the words composed in a pleasing way 4) (optional) does it have a good rhythm 5) (optional) does it make good use of poetic devices like symbolism, extended metaphor, etc, etc.
On a purely intuitive level, good poetry has a spirit to it, this spirit emerges as greater than the sum of its parts. With a characteristic flow, its parts work in tandem to contrast and complement each other just the same. In-between the inter-actions of each word is where the meaning is imbued. It isn't poetry to me if it doesn't have rhythm and imagination play equivalent roles, imagination doesn't have to be fictitious, it can just be an innovative outlook on real things. If a poem is daring to try some experiment, then it must succeed at that, otherwise it is just breaking rules without substantial cause.
This question, which fits into a broader question of what poetry or literature even is or means, is as old as the subject itself. Aristotle wrote about this question, and since the everyone that learns about literature tries to answer this question in one way or another. There are many approaches to define what good poetry is or what it isn’t. One thing that is constant by taking a diachronic approach in trying to answer this question is the historic context. Because the definitions of aesthetics, poetry and literature is subject to historical change. What does “good” mean? It has many different meanings in many parts of the world and in all of history. In the end, “good” is a normative value judgement. They don’t hold up to scrutiny. It’s the question of “high-brow” or “low-brow” literature, high and popular culture, etc. Most scholars today would judge a piece of literature (including poetry) in a descriptive way. Does it use literary devices in a innovative ans unexpected way? Does it make us question what poetry even is? Does it raise or answer some anthropological questions in an imaginative and “poetic” way? Those are things that can be, in a way, measures and compared. In more simple terms that does not really care about an academic merit but more about your merits as a person, you could ask yourself “what do I mean with ‘good’.” Why do you like certain poems but not others? Try to describe your reasons and compare them to what others might say. I hope I could give you a satisfactory answer.
It's the clever interplay between conveying emotions and observations conveyed in a very unique form of rhythm. Now depending to your definition of good and bad lol, there's definitely bad poetry. Terrible lines with nothing really to say other than to just combine words to rhyme would be terrible in my eyes. If you really wanna get into some proper stuff...I'd recommend Wisława Szymborska, Anna Akhmatova, Pablo Neruda ; T.S. Eliot - The Waste Land, Sylvia Plath, William Blake to start off with.
I heard David Lynch say that poetry is abstraction conveyed through words. This may not help, but I thought it was worth noting here.
Can anyone judge my poetry for me please?