Nick Laird spells it out:
Poetry is a way of being alone without feeling alone. It allows you to experience another mind, I suppose. And it does that more fully than other art forms, I think. It doesn’t simply describe an experience, or a feeling, or a moment: it evokes it through, say, rhythm or tone or diction or metaphor. It creates a mood. A poem communicates before it is understood; it’s not a fully paraphrasable form, which distinguishes it from other forms of writing.
It’s also perhaps the oldest art form. We can go back to an age-old idea of naming things, the Adamic impulse—to give something a name has always been an immensely powerful thing. To name something is to own it, to capture it. A poem is still a kind of spell, an incantation. Historically, a poem also invoked: it was a blessing, or a curse, or a charm. It had a motile power, was able to summon something into being. A poem is a special kind of speech-act. In a good poem there’s the trance-like effect of language in its most concentrated, naked form.
On a similar note, Canada’s new Poet Laureate, Michel Pleau, describes in a recent interview what he’d like to achieve over his two-year term:
You speak about poetry as being fundamental to what makes us human.
Poetry has existed since the beginning of humanity. Our ancestors gathered around the fire and tried to communicate with mysteries bigger than themselves. That’s still what we do with poetry. We write with the hope there’s someone at the other end of our poem.
But you also think poets are the object of too many clichés.
When you see poets, it’s in places like the Just for Laughs Festival. They’re caricatures and they’re always a bit ridiculous – you know, a guy with a beret on his head and a scarf around his neck who says inane things in rhyme. It makes people laugh. But poetry is deeper than that.
You want to change that image?
Yes. My goal would be to make people feel that maybe they love poetry more than they imagine. Our relationship to poetry is often a bit academic. Sometimes it’s linked to bad memories from having to learn poems by heart and reciting them in school. People often don’t realize they’re surrounded by poetry. At the very least, it’s in the songs they listen to. I often say that lovers’ words – when they whisper them to one another in the ear – are an expression of poetry in our daily lives.
The Dish 