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From: llfe@hound.UUCP (L.FENG)
Newsgroups: net.poems
Subject: critical poetry
Message-ID: <924@hound.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 19-Feb-85 08:58:37 EST
Article-I.D.: hound.924
Posted: Tue Feb 19 08:58:37 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Feb-85 06:44:05 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 25

I would like to start some discussion on "what constitutes a good poem."
There are a number of things that have to be defined before we can start
talking about poems, but I think that this can lead to an interesting
discussion.  First, we need to define good.  Therefore, in English poetry,

Questions:
1)  what is the purpose of a poem?
	Is it social comment?
	Is it self expression?
	Is it a literary exercise?
	Is it something else?
	Is it a combination of things?  If so, what?

2)  what are the various forms of poetry?
	What are the various rules (meter, rhyme, alliteration) for the forms?
	Is there a "free" form with NO rules?
	Does it matter?

3)  from the above, can we determine a set of rules that
    defines "good poetry," realizing that there will always
    be poetry that is good that falls outside of our rules?

What other questions can we ask?
-- 
From the lunch hour of hound!llfe.