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22 August 2005: Just a few comments concerning The Nature of Poetry today. It seems to me that poetry's subject matter is not a defining element of it. My impression is that poetry can have any subject matter, and that a text's having any particular subject matter will not make it a poem. I would consider tone and point of view part of subject matter.
I'm not sure what to do with grammar so far as defining poetry is concerned. I think perhaps it is part of poetry's form. I began recently for the first time to figure out what forms can be present in poetry. I think form not a defining element of poetry although no piece of prose can have any poetic form. A paradox? Maybe. I don't claim to be thinking too super-rationally right now. I'm in my pre-rational set-up mode. I may be rational about poetry not being defined by its various forms, though. I think its techniphemes (technical elements, you should recall), maybe only its techniphemes, define it--and their arrangement results in forms.
Every text has a form. A text-form. That's just its over-all shape on the page. A text-form contains other kinds of forms. In poetry, these are poetic forms: rhyme schemes; syllable-distribution-schemes; metrical schemes; secondary-repeneme-schemes (i.e., schemes showing the location of textemes involved in alliteration, assonance, euphony, consonance). At the moment, I believe that does it for the poetic schemes significant in poetry. But I feel sure I'm wrong about that, too.
Rhetorical devices are another problem area, for me. Which I note to make sure I don't forget to think more about them when my brain is working better.
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