Sometimes I feel an irresistible urge to write poetry.
It is a strong urge that comes suddenly. However, it doesn’t happen as often as it did when I was younger.
Anyway, it really comes on suddenly.
Incidentally, I have never had a strong desire to become a poet. If I say I have no talent, that is the end of the story, but when I read the works of poets in the past, I cannot imagine that I could ever write anything that would surpass their works. That is why I feel that poetry requires a somewhat special ability.
You have to scrape and scrape (and your nerves), sharpen and sharpen your senses, and build up each word. And then you have to set the tone of the whole thing and rack your brains over a single punctuation mark. …It’s very impossible.
In Europe, it seems that poets have a separate existence in the world of literature. They are respected by the public, and there even exists “poetics” as an academic discipline.
Many great writers such as Goethe and Hesse, who have the image of novelists, also wrote poems, and they are highly regarded as poets.
In Japan, however, poets are somewhat lower in status than haiku poets and poets. I have not heard of many novelists who also write poetry (except for Mieko Kawakami, who started out as a poet).
Of course, there are some major names that everyone knows, such as Shuntaro Tanikawa, but on the contrary, I don’t have an image of them writing novels.
One of the reasons for this is that in this country, song lyrics are more familiar than the poetry form, and I think that is how they have developed.
In fact, Japanese lyrics are quite well written and sophisticated, even on a global scale.
When I read translations of Western music from the past, most of them are so cheap that I can’t even read them. Rap is almost just a bad, abusive, abusive language.
The lyrics of Japanese idol singers are much more interesting and witty.
In this sense, in Japan, rather than poets who express only pure words, those who write poetry with music, such as Takashi Matsumoto, Yu Aku, Yumi Yumi, and Yutaka Ozaki, may be considered the real poets in Japan.
Once, the literary critic Takaaki Yoshimoto (who is also a poet) recommended Sakutaro Hagiwara’s “The Principle of Poetry” as the best text for aspiring poets in Japan.
Since learning this, I have read this book many times. And I feel that this book has taught me what poetry is.
To summarize, art can be divided into subjective and objective. Subjective art is emotional art that pursues a world of ideas that cannot exist in reality. Typical examples are “music” and “poetry.
On the other hand, the objective side is analytical and observational.
In other words, it is “painting” or “novel.
Originally, the genre of “poetry” has a deep affinity with music.
Sometimes I feel like writing poetry, perhaps because the essence of a novel is somewhat awake and objective, and if I do it all the time, I get tired of recognizing, or rather, of observing.
So, in order to blow away such fatigue, I just want to scream. I just can’t resist the urge to sing. It may sound like a strange metaphor, but poetry may be like karaoke for me.
Even here in Note, there are people who write poems that are like shouts. I think they want to shout from their hearts. They want to sing.
I understand the feelings of those who write such poems. Even if a poem looks like a mere scribble at first glance, I try to discern the essence of what I see beyond it and try to take it as honestly as possible.
However, there is another hurdle to overcome when it comes to whether it can be art as it is.
According to the aforementioned “Principles of Poetry,” whether it is a poem, a miscellaneous piece of writing, a novel, or even a newspaper advertisement, its artistic value is determined by its “beauty” and the “emotion” it brings to the reader.
This means that even if it is a hanging advertisement on a train, copywriting in a newspaper, or a web article, it can be art. I think this is both encouraging and an indicator of the value of a certain kind of art, not only for poetry, but also for those who want to write various kinds of texts in this Note.
At any rate, for those who want to shout something to the world, please read this article.
See you soon!
