On Poetry

(Henri Silberman, Poet's Walk, Central Park, New York City)

"Between such very broad and such very narrow definitions lies a central core that most people, if they were feeling reasonable about the matter, would admit was poetry. If we tried to state precisely what the central core consisted in, we would probably get into trouble, and so we will not try. Nevertheless, we are certain that you know what we mean. We are certain that nine times out of ten, or perhaps even ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you would agree with us that X was a poem and Y was not."

-Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren

Isn't that interesting? It's so true too. We can't really define poetry without someone along the lines arguing that such and such isn't correct. And yet, when you really get down to it, we all know what poetry is, and we all agree.