What is poetry?

Greetings, gentle readers.
Sure, I've got some not inconsiderable editing abilty. That being said, I'm no poet laureate, and would like to think that I haven't pretended to be. Thus, when asked to make critical comments about poems, I chose the coward's way out, and wrote my own, in the hopes that people could draw their own conclusions, and I wouldn't be forced to explain things directly. So here we go.

indian summer

do you remember

warmth

in heavy smothered

breath

perfumed and soft

as a whispered farewell

the pipes that sang in your dreams

left only echoes

hollow and brittle

the river carries the leaves of autumn away

never to return

the north wind sighs

with thoughts of sorrow

and i

breathe your name

in misty opposition

but the frost

does not care

- mARKUS

What's the point? Summer turns to autumn and it makes us all sad, I suppose. The point I wanted to illustrate is that I don't editorialise. I try not to tell my readers to feel lonely or isolated or discriminated against. To be perfectly honest, I think this poem is rather rubbish, since it still wanders away from pure imagery, and uses very nebulous terms like dreams and thoughts. The work - the conjecturing and creation - should be done in the reader's head, not on the page. As Norman Mailer wrote, poems should be like pins stuck by sadists. They should prompt and provoke, but not explain or illustrate. Prose is for delineation and diversification. Poetry is supposed to be a distillation. It should be quick. Almost silent. It should be the least amount of words needed to express a concept. Ezra Pound said that poets should remove any word from a poem which does not do work. I agree. I'll even volunteer to wield the blade when it comes time for the cull.
So there's my lecture on poetry. I would carry on further, but I don't have the energy. Someday, when I have a solid foundation of physical and mental health, I'll hold forth at greater length. Oh, and if someone could remind me to laugh sarcastically at people who specialise in archæology and try and use that knowledge to draw conclusions about the future of mankind, I would be immensely appreciative.
Good night England and the colonies.

-mARKUS
^+Justice for the 96+^