the feeling, emotion and message behind the words are more important than the words themselves
So declares Gemini a foundation belief in the purpose of language, and it is one purpose of language, but not the only one. The failure of words in this world to express so much that can't be expressed in words has been itself the purpose of so much poetry, as well as philosophy (see Wallace Stevens' The Whole of Harmonium), as well as the anguish of many a teenager--myself included.
The analysis of poetry, as I have discussed in poetry analysis, is as much about heavy lifting as it is about the actual imparting of information between two, or more people.
How hard that is to understand, in a world where the transfer of information is measured down into bits per second--a baud. How hard it is for any artist to exist in this world where their very stock in trade--the medium itself--has been denigrated to something less that 1's and 0's.
I mostly agree with knifegirl's critique:
Why paint when you can just take a picture? Why compose music when words are so much more straightforward?
Even the use of straightforward words is fraught with risk! Meaning, the understanding of a poem is not other words; it is the words themselves.
Having said that, I do agree that some poetry on E2, like poetry elsewhere, doesn't work.
Yes, sometimes the words fail--the rope breaks, to use the metaphor of poetry analysis. Much poetry is indeed failed experiment, but no more than the expressions of children learning to use the language.
We are beings that live in language. Often it fails, but often, it lifts us to something beyond what we think, what we say--giving us a feeling of something beyond.
I would like to thank Gemini for this opportunity to disagree; and I have tried to use it in the spirit it was offered. I don't like to pass up opportunities to confront ideas.