poesie

Photo taken in Monforte d'Alba, Italy.

What is poetry? Why can't I always understand it and does it have to rhyme? The former, are questions that I used to ask myself, and the last ("latter"? Oh, fancy word!) is something that I am beginning to understand. One thing that I love about poésie* is that one can (it seems...) break all the rules of prose... in the name of emotion, or the evoking of it. (Now to figure out exactly what is "prose": is it always tied to "literary" or can it tie itself to an old battered fishing pole... and might the words, cast out, be just as meaningful?

Here is William Shakespeare's simple answer to today's question "Qu'est-ce que c'est la poésie?":

"La poésie est cette musique que tout homme porte en soi."
Poetry is that music that all men carry inside themselves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Submit your poems & answers~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Following Shakespeare's example, above, would you please offer your own definition? That is: would you answer the question "What is poetry? Qu'est-ce que c'est la poésie?" Perhaps you would prefer to answer via a poem of your own? Thank you for sharing your thoughts and poésies in the comments box.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Today's Word~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One reminder, before we get to our mot-du-jour... If you happen to be in or around London on the 21st, 22nd, or 23rd of this month, then please look for our Domaine Rouge-Bleu stand at the Barbican Centre (where the French Wine-Growers' Fair will soon be underway)!

*poésie (po-eh-zee) noun, feminine

    : poetry; poem, piece of poetry

[from the Greek "poiêsis]

Today's "poem", written and posted last year, is dedicated to my beautiful niece-by-marriage, Audrey. She is French and she is a student of linguistics in Verona, Italy. Though she has always been fond of language (especially Italian!), she is beginning to fall in love with writing (a gift, I believe, that she
inherited from her mother, Marie-Françoise*).

(photo: that's my daughter, Jackie, on the left, and Audrey on the right)

A word about the following "words": I scribbled down the first several stanzas as they echoed through my mind during the car ride home from the Italian "foot hills" or "pied mont." Not wanting to forget even one savory scene, the rest of the poem was conjured up as soon as we arrived home.

"WRITE IT DOWN!"

Write it down while it is fresh in your mind, fresh as the hand-grated parmesan that falls over scalding hot risotto.

Write it down while it is thick, thick as the brouillard* that covers a patchwork of grapevines on the rolling hills of northern Italy in December.

Write it down while it is still chattering, like the wrinkled signores' "Bene! bene!" in the town square at Monforte d'Alba.

Write it down while it is strong, strong as the ink-black espresso that fills half a demitasse* at Marco's place in Alba.

Write it down while it is pouring, like the olive oil my husband splashes onto his plate for bread-dipping while waiting for the antipasti.

Write it down while it flows, like red Dolcetto* from an uncorked bottle.

Write it down while it is dark, like the winter sky above the foothills in the Piedmont.

Write it down while it is hot, hot as the bagna cauda* that bathes the yellow roasted peppers and halved onions in Renza's kitchen.

Write it down while it is passionate, like the lovers' quarrel that silences an entire Italian cantina but for the flailing lips of one fiery Franco-American couple.

Write it down while it is fizzing like sparkling water, now swallowed (along with a bit of pride and an apology), at a pizza dive on the outskirts of Bra.

Write it down while it is funny, like the name of the Italian town above.

Write it down while it is sensual, like the lips of the kissing Italians. (Why do they call the twirling of tongues "French kissing"? You've not seen kissing until you've seen Italian kissing!)

Write it down while it is crisp, like the cotton sheets at Alberto's bed and breakfast in Castiglione Falletto.

Write it down before it is gone, never to return, like cappuccino foam at the bottom of a cup. Pop...pop...pop.... Poof!

                                          *     *     *
More stories... (and even a poem!) in my book, below. Thank you for picking up a copy at your local bookstore or online!

"Words in a French Life: Lessons in Love and Language"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~References~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marie-Françoise = Read a story written by my French aunt; le brouillard (m) = fog; demitasse (or demi-tasse, literally "half cup"); Dolcetto = a wine grape variety grown in northern Italy; bagna cauda (literally "hot bath") = a warm sauce (anchovies, olive oil, and garlic) for bread and boiled/roasted vegetables

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Quotes on Poetry~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Can you help translate these quotes on poetry? Thank you for sharing your English version here, in the comments box.

Listen to my daughter read aloud the first three quotes:  Download poesie.wav Download poesie.mp3

"La poésie immortalise tout ce qu'il y a de meilleur et de plus beau dans le monde." --Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Tout poème naît d'un germe, d'abord obscur, qu'il faut rendre lumineux pour qu'il produise des fruits de lumière." --René Daumal

"Qu'est-ce que la poésie? Une pensée dans une image."  --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Douce poésie ! Le plus beau des arts ! Toi qui, suscitant en nous le pouvoir créateur, nous met tout proches de la divinité." --Guillaume Apollinaire

"A mesure qu'avance la civilisation, la poésie, presque nécessairement, décline."  --Thomas Macaulay

"Un poète est un rossignol qui, assis dans l'obscurité, chante pour égayer de doux sons sa propre solitude."  --Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Contre les voluptés des plus heureux du monde Je n'échangerais pas les maux que j'ai soufferts : C'est le plus grand soupir qui fait le plus beau vers." --Sully Prudhomme

"On ne retient presque rien sans le secours des mots, et les mots ne suffisent presque jamais pour rendre précisément ce que l'on sent." --Denis Diderot

Quotes found at Evene.fr

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Books & More!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Penguin Book of French Poetry: 1820-1950; With Prose Translations

Joyeux Noel: Learning Songs and Traditions in French (K - Grade 4)

French in Action : A Beginning Course in Language and Culture

Comments

[Jim Boring]

A definition by implication - for your collection. Jim

Lear: A Synopsis in terza rima

This falling out with his Cordelia,
the sad miscalculation of intent:
the girl spoke only truth to her papa
but all his kingly pride would not be bent;
his royal hubris trumped a father’s heart
when wisdom would have known the love she meant
and bless’d the gentle wisdom on her part;
instead the grasping sisters won the day,
true sibling kinship felt the venom’d dart.
What evils come when duty goes astray
the bard well know and turned into his play.

Jim Boring

[elizabeth claverie]

bon jour, following is not what you asked for..what is poetry?...but instead my thoughts on "how to write one"
from my struggling pen to you.

how to write a poem

first take out a sheet of paper
if you are one to do it by hand
or place your fingers on the keyboard
touching a-s-d-f-j-k-l
as you would touch your lover’s lips
write the first words that find you
“the frost began lacing my garden”
look out the window at a sweet pea
reaching a tendril out to keep from falling
listen to the police siren in the distance
hope it isn’t a loved one in trouble
put your ear to the window
wait for the orange mottled finches
scattering in the neighbor’s fig tree
get up and pad your barefeet
to the kitchen
turn on the gas under the kettle, listen
to the call from your keyboard
yelling your name over and over
ignore it while you run a tea cup
under hot water
walk past the hall mirror, suck in your stomach
ignore the wailing from your bedroom
as you pet the cat
pour your tow headed son some milk
turn the tv down
return to the 8 keys now
desperate for you, desperate for you
you shudder over them and type
“in my yard a rose drops a faded petal”
your eyebrows knot
take out the second “a” and insert “its last”
before “faded petal”
rise smiling

you take out the garbage.

elizabeth claverie

[Marianne]

By and large, I think Shakespeare's definition of poetry is among the best.

I have a notebook in which I’ve collected various definitions of poetry. One of them I heard from a Frenchman years ago: “un raccourci.” In other words, poetry is a more concise way of saying what might be longer in prose. This is usually true, but I think there is more to it than that.

In reading much modern “poetry,” my personal opinion is that it is nothing of the sort. Poetry is one of those things that one can know, but have difficulty defining. No one definition captures it all.

I don’t believe that poetry has to rhyme, but it has to have something that’s absent from prose. Part of the difference is in structure, a discernible shape.

I believe Kristin’s composition, “Write It Down,” is a poem, partly because of the repetition at the beginnings of the lines, and partly because of the images and analogies it produces. Some poems are borderline (read William Carlos Williams), more poetic from their images than their words. Some prose is poetic (read Khalil Gibran).

True poetry, while maybe not exactly music, has an element of SOUND (which could be, but doesn’t have to be, rhyme) that prose lacks. It usually also has an element of rhythm, in that one cannot “just write” and have the result be called poetry, or even artistry.

I have written poetry in other languages, including French, and it is almost impossible to translate even one’s own work exactly into another tongue. Poetry is distinctive in a way that prose isn’t.

I could put much into a definition of poetry, but I believe it is a way of looking at life, or part of life, and expressing that vision in a unique way.

[Pamela Singer]

Ah Poetry:
the centre of everything ..it is what encircles us.. a heartbeat..
though the path may not be illuminated it is very much there...perhaps poetry is the invisible helping hand: the translator at Babylon
I often hear it in the wind
As for the poet: laconic wordsmiths and weavers of timeless history...emotional archelogists
I love all the classics but also hunt out the small insert of poetry in the local school journals,the small edition booklets from town to town and the walls of various bathroom stalls...or a passing comment from a stranger
Physical poetry: walking barefoot

[Jules Greer]

HI to all of Kristi's beautiful (and smart)
French-Word-A-Day followers,

Last September when I was visiting Kristi for the harvest we would drop whatever we
were seperately doing - Kristi in her office
dreaming up words and phrases for you, and
me in the future garden dreaming up waves of
flowers around the clothesline. When the magic hour of ten arrived we would both run
to the kitchen to brew our tea and then out
to the little patio with the two ratan loungers. There we would adjust them so we
faced each other and begin our sacred daily
conversation. ALWAYS at the end of our 30
minute break Kristi would look at me and say, "Oh Mom, why can't we figure out how to
record this!"

What we experienced each morning over tea in
the Provence sunshine was poetry in it's highest form, a flow of two souls so connected in love and wonder of each other.
KRISTI SHOULD WRITE A POEM ABOUT THIS !!!

XOXO

JULES

[Fiona]

I like this:

"Better than any other kind of writing, poetry captures the intense moment. It manages to be both personal and yet universal. The lines of a poem can be repeated like a mantra or held inside like a secret talisman."

Marianne Brace

[Jan H]

Chacun A Son Gout

What is the taste of poetry?
If you swallow or you bite?
I've licked a poem so fully down
I almost lost my sight

I've gobbled it in solid chunks
And nibbled it to crispy bits
I drank it in one holy gulp
Even picked it into tiny nits

When bloated into ecstasy
My gut and tongue elated
The brain reviewed the flavor there
And then the poem was rated

But what is the taste of poetry?
Our senses are subjective
The writer concocts the recipe
Are we readers the poet's objective?

[dorothy dufour]

My two cents worth: I didn't care for dogs muc h after several disasterous tries, but when we owned Bonnie Jean (as in Brigadoon) I was converted. She was a tri-border collie, MUCH smarter than I, and so loveable. She enriched our retirement, and I wish she were still alive today to alleviate my husband's dementia. But I will never be a cat fancier.

Loved your take on poesie!
Dorothy, Abbotsford, BC

[Merrie Dail]

I've written (dare I say for almost 60 years) - stories, books, essays, poems - since I learned to put pencil to paper. Poetry seems a way to focus thought, sharpen vision, and express what is truly important. Many an essay has ended up as a short, but hopefully more powerful and evocative picture.

[Merrie Dail]

INDIAN SUMMER

Early
morning sun
dances across the inlet
in a blizzard of light
tags
a falling
leaf
then darts up the hill
weaving through the trees
in a game of hide and seek

Thousands
of gold flecks
swirl through the air
lifted on the wind -
while winter lies
in wait around the next corner

Temporarily blinded
I pause to revel
in this display of summer’s last laughter.

[beta]

To me poesy is the crystalization of a time, place, mood, event, etc. made very personal by the words and form chosen.
My favorite haiku:
Butterflies float forth
Fresh from warm silken coccoons
Wings whisper "sweet life."

[Cindy Baucom]

When I think about poetry: it is the motion and color of our lives and our world. It tends to romanticize and allow us to see the things around us through a different type of lens. Sometimes clearly, sometimes magnified, sometimes warped or blurred, but usually evokes a new perspective on a subject.

[Harvey Gardner]

Fall Foilage

Leaves rained with each wave of wind
That sent a massive shiver through the crown.
I ran to try to catch just one
Before it touched the ground
But sensing me the wind held breath,
And leaves held fast, my head bent back
Still waiting for another chance.

My game heart leapt
When from high up
One leaf began to fall
But soon veered off
To foil my waiting hands
This winged leaf,
This bird.

–HJ Gardner, November 20, 2002

[Harvey Gardner]

Fall Foilage

Leaves rained with each wave of wind
That sent a massive shiver through the crown.
I ran to try to catch just one
Before it touched the ground
But sensing me the wind held breath,
And leaves held fast, my head bent back
Still waiting for another chance.

My game heart leapt
When from high up
One leaf began to fall
But soon veered off
To foil my waiting hands
This winged leaf,
This bird.

–HJ Gardner, November 20, 2002

[Marvin Alkatib]

Potry is expressing yourself. Poetry is a chance to share your ideas, your thoughts, your memories, your creativity. Poetry is drawing a picture of things that you wish not to speak aloud, but want other people to hear. Poetry is writing down what you see, how you feel, what you do, and how you view the world and the people that inhabit it, in a way that each thought flows together to tell a story of a certain thing that you want other people to know about. Poetry is life.

[Marvin Alkatib]

Potry is expressing yourself. Poetry is a chance to share your ideas, your thoughts, your memories, your creativity. Poetry is drawing a picture of things that you wish not to speak aloud, but want other people to hear. Poetry is writing down what you see, how you feel, what you do, and how you view the world and the people that inhabit it, in a way that each thought flows together to tell a story of a certain thing that you want other people to know about. Poetry is life.

[Fred Caswell]

Having scanned the delicate caressing of lovely words above, it is with trepidation that the following which was written by a high school student struggling with his passion for his secret love while facing the possibility of being a warrior in WWII:

Kiss me , Dear, softly now,
Night creeps on -- time flies still.
Faithful ever, that's a vow;
Kiss me, Dear, softly now.
I'll return, sure I will
And you'll be waiting still.
Kiss me Dear, softly now,
Night creeps on -- time flies still.

Just can't forget this poesie by a love-sick lad facing being drafted in the near future.

[Jan Leishman]

Hi Kirsten,
I love your poem. I remember it from last year. I printed it out and it is still posted on the noticeboard above my desk.
Jan from Australie.

[Claire Fontaine]

To me a great poem expresses perfectly something that I myself cannot find words to express (but wish I could.)

[Alain]

Les roses sont rouges et les violettes sont
bleues j'aiment le francais just commet toi.

Ma poesie pour le jour

Alain

[Ruth Hoppin]

Voici mon poe`me:

POET'S QUEST

Who is the keeper of the flame?
Whoever the Muse has called by name
to cast words into a churning sea
until their sense and sound agree;
Draw language thus infused with charm
our of the cauldron to disarm,
Light up the castle, gather to bear
tidings of poetry sweet and clear.

- Ruth Hoppin
reprinted from "The Christian
Communicator" July 2002

[Jennifer in OR]

Hi Kristi, here's a lovely poem my mom wrote about the poet. She's a wonderful poet, though now she's almost 80 and can't remember what day it is! This was written probably 40 years ago.

The Poet

A Poet is a man who tries
To cut the universe down to size
But yet retain the sense of space
While putting it in a certain place.
A poet with a little verse
Captures and giftwraps the universe.

A poet is a man who sees
The enchanted forest in the trees.
He sees the bird of happiness fly
In the land where people do not die.
These things and more the poet doth tell
In a poem that fits in a little nutshell.

A poet is a man who stores
Ideas in his dresser drawers.
With words he combs his tangled hair
And starts the day with “Change,” “Compare.”
And when the words begin to fuse
The poet melts into the Muse.

[Holly S]

A question please? I noticed the term "chene vert" for oaks was similar to a word I've been trying to puzzle out: Les Cheneaux (there may be two "n's". Would you be willing to help this student out?

Many Thanks!

Holly

[eve robillard]

Kristin--Poetry is sound and sense.
(That's from a textbook; I can't take credit for it.) loved everyone's pieces--eve

[Eve Robillard]

Kristin--Once again, I urge you to publish a book of your lovely photography! eve

[Rafael Castellar das Neves]

Hi Kristin!

Pretty nice site...lot of good stuff here...Liked so much!

Congrats,

Rafael

P.S.: I have something to show to you, I'll contact you by e-mail.