Poetry as an Art Form

For several years, poetry as an art form has served as a means of disseminating knowledge. Different poets have different ways of conveying knowledge and communicating their thoughts and emotions through the medium of a poem. A reader’s interpretation of the literary meaning is determined by his imagination. A good reader does not simply read a poem; he exists inside it, putting himself in the shoes of the persona to attempt to convey the pain, pleasure, rage, terror, or satisfaction appropriate to the setting of the poem.

Emotion and speech are the most basic instruments of poetry composition. We may confuse the two, but although they are different, they are related in one way or another. An emotion is basically a feeling that could be determined regarding mood or the relationship between one and others. On the other hand, an expression is the resultant outcome of emotion. It could be regarding tone, mood, and attitude. This three basically carry a lot of meaning when analyzing the stylistic devices in a poem. Amiri Baraka has made great contributions in the field of poetry. According to him, the understanding of speech is described as a form of culture itself. He explains that culture is within the conscious and subconscious of every person within a nation. Baraka explains that every word within poetry has a meaning, but he suggests that the meaning may not necessarily be direct. Amiri expressive language text could be used as a vital reference for another form of literature and more so poems.

In this paper am going to explain how expression and emotion apply in a poetic piece. The relationship between emotion and expression is the key target .major writers today have come up with their way of expressing this two concepts by the use of different writing skills in poetry literature. It is vital to understand that expression express emotions, tone, and mood. The background information from the narrator is the place to observe and understand the point being delivered by the writer.

Expression and emotion are the main foundations of poetic writing

The poem ‘When you are Old’ by William Butler is a script of a kind. Filled with sorrow and pain then narration begins. The poem is about an elderly woman who lost love from his youth. She never realized it, yet she was growing old and elderly. The love of the man is explained as he was always following the woman to bars, but gazing from a distance. The persona is in pain as she realizes how wasteful she was to her youth. True love was gone, the man loved his soul but not the physical beauty she had. The change of the woman face did not determine the love the man was willing to show her, but the commitment of her soul to his love was all he requested back. The woman is now old, and her beauty is no more, she does not have love, for those she thought were in love with him used her and left. Her only love is gone, and all she can do is think of him. She is helpless and in despair, with no one to love her and hold on her old age.

Stylistic devices in the play and their roles in explaining Emotion

The stylistic devices on this poem have extensive roles in delivering the message. Personification as one stylistic device is expressed in many forms (Attridge 21). ‘Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled’ is a stanza in the poem where the ability to run away is given to love. For us who may not understand what personification entails (Leech 33), it is the act of giving the non-living an ability to behave like the living. This Stanza shows the pain the woman is going through because of her ignorance at the time of her youth. Symbolization has been used to demonstrate the pride, beauty and also the aging of the woman. ‘When you are old and grey and full of sleep’ the color grey and sleep are used as a figure of speech as they act as symbolic acts demonstrating an extensive growth age difference. Imagery has a way of assisting a reader to visualize what is happening in a context. According to the poem, the writer explains the surrounding during the youth of the woman and at her elderly age. This assists us to understand the company the woman was involved with during her old youth as she attends bars and later the lonely life she has during her old age, all she has to console her is a book.

The structure of the play is unique and is based on many dimensions .first; there is a flashback, this reveals the kind of life the woman had before what she is experiencing now (Leech 26). The writer of the poem tries to come up with a system of explaining the occurrence of activities. This hooks the readers to want to understand, the kind of life the woman was involved before she aged. ‘And hid his face amid a crowd of stars’ this is a form of hidden foreshadowing where the persona is put in place to try to think of what is going to happen to her life on this old age. She has no one in love with her now, and all she can do is sit next to the fire helplessly.

The Expression and Emotions in the Poem

The poem has expressed many feelings both from the persona, the woman being discussed and the man who fell in love. The persona is bitter as she feels that the man was neglected from love. He expresses this by showing no mercy as he explains the thought the woman has. His tone is with anger, though soft and calm he pinches the woman soul with words. The atmosphere explains how chilly it is, the presence of fire for the woman to keep warm. All this show the lonely life the woman hers, even a person to keep her warm is not present. The mood of the poem is sad (Attridge 66), and the emotions within the woman’s eyes are tears and bitterness.

The woman also has a brighter side when she has the whole world viewing her as the beautiful one amongst many. She has love, though false or true it does not matter. The emotions at this phase of her life are tears of joy and happiness. The man, on the other hand, is miserable for he is unnoticed despite his efforts to reach for the woman even by following her to bars. The poem has demonstrated an active way of showing how the emotion of the woman is causing her to express her agony and pains in thought.

The writer has used many forms of intelligent ways to ensure that the woman pains is felt. He has brought forth a chair and a book as the only companions of the woman. He has demonstrated the face of the woman in words that spoil the mood of the play making the tone harsh and painful ‘Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled.’ This poem has a great contribution to the achievement of demonstrating how expressions could be used to show emotions as per a context.

The relationship of the poem with the teaching of Amiri thought of expressive language

Baraka believed that the uniqueness of the language of a poem was of great importance as it could determine the meaning of each word in a poem. He argued that rhythm and rhyme not only created a follow of the poem but also they determined the culture and topic within a poem. Expressive language was the field in which Baraka contributed to literature. He explained that a theme within a poem could mean more than one thing. That is, money could mean rich to some and to others it could symbolize poverty. He demonstrates that expressive language requires a huge support on the background of the writer regarding culture to come up with a description that is easy for the world to understand.

Speech is one concern in Baraka’s research; he explains that speech explains the purpose of being alive (Baraka 5). What we need to understand is being alive involves many aspects of being happy and sad. A person is only alive if he or she expresses emotions. Just as Baraka explains in the poem ‘when you are old’ speech has influenced the theme of sadness and bitterness. The writer has ensured that he explains the art of life by showing how miserable the woman in the form of text.

Speech, on the other hand, has been used to explain the aspect of love in the play. Just as Baraka explained that one thing might mean another in poetry the writer has achieved this aspect in one way or another. For instance, when the writer says “And loved the sorrows of your changing face” he is with the intention of showing the growing love of the man to the woman regardless of how she looks. The understanding of sorrow is twisted to ensure a fit of the word to explain true love.

The arrangement of words in poetry may carry different meanings; you are either speaking properly or not making sense according to Baraka. The following sentence could explain the relationship of this statement about our poem: “And slowly read, and dream of the soft look” and ‘And nodding by the fire, take down this book.” The arrangement of this two stanzas creates a rhyme scheme building up a musical rhythm of the poem. Baraka emphasized that the appearance of words in a poem may influence many aspects of stylistic devices in poetry. The most important thing when considering language is not the grammatical view but the meaning the statement delivers.

Baraka believes that communication is the most important thing in education. This could be the case, as it delivers the message or information carried even in a poem. Relating this to our poem ,we could say that the writer’s intention to explain the importance of true love and why to respect our youth has been delivered. The teachings of Baraka in art and poetry are wide and of great importance to our living today.

Work cited

Leech, Geoffrey N. A linguistic guide to English poetry. Vol. 4. Rout ledge, 2014. Print.

Attridge, Derek. The rhythms of English poetry. Rout ledge, 2014. Print.

Baraka, Amiri. “Expressive Language.” Poetry Foundation, 24 Sept. 2014. Available at www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69473/expressive-language. Accessed on 7th December 7, 2017.

Yeats, William B. The variorum edition of the poems of WB Yeats. Springer, 2015. Print.