Sharra wrote: Brian - I think that all art forms are trying to capture 'soul' (for want of a better word). We're trying to express what can't always be explained. On a side note, I think that's why often music/art do a better job of capturing it. Poetry by it's very nature translates things into a language, whereas music can speak directly 'soul to soul'.
I have to disagree. I don't try to capture "the human soul" in my work, nor do I think it is somehow part of my duty as one who attempts to write poetry. I write because I enjoy it, it gives me a release, some people have told me I am good at it, others have even paid me for it, and maybe, somehow, somewhere along the line I may, in a very small way, contribute something to our collective knowledge about what it is to be human at this point in history. Soul? Doesn't even come into it.
Poetry is no more burdened by language in its attempt to communicate than painting is by light or perspective, or music by chords and scales. The form always mediates.
And I can honestly say that no work of art has ever spoken to my "soul". I don't know what soul is, I don't know what it means or whether or not it even exists. Or, if it does, whether or not I have one!
B.
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