Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. ~T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919



I've seen an increasing number of poems which cling solely to emotions, what I call "all-emotions" poems; or perhaps of late I've become more sensitive to them. Either way, this is not the proper section for them. Let me explain.



Feelings are generated by thoughts and events. Two lovers have a fight: feelings. A person visits a childhood home: feelings. The car won't start and one is late to work: feelings. One receives a gift that suggests insensitivity on the part of the giver: feelings. One is standing at a fork in the road in an autumn wood, trying to decide which way to go: feelings.



The all-feelings poem wallows, which is intuitively contradictory to what a "dramatic" experience is. Yes, dramatic experiences make us feel emotions; however, these experiences are limited and fleeting. A dramatic poem must do this as well--it cannot linger on one emotion for too long for fear of cannibalizing its intent. When I look at most of the work posted here, I feel like what "dramatic" means is not fully understood.



Gone are the lovers and their quarrel. We have only the bitterness, the wounds. Gone is the childhood home. We submerge ourselves in nostalgia. Missing is the car and the deadline: we have only guilt and frustration. Unstated are gift and giver -- we focus on the resentment. Woods yield to indecision.



Now, the feelings may be presented in adroit ways, using adept metaphors and other strokes of language. This may be colorful as heck. But still, the feelings float untethered like loose balloons. Drama is the realization, the "Aha!" at the connections among and between things. A dramatic poem, then, reveals, or allows to emerge, interweaving of events and emotions. The perfect blend is what we strive and look for in a dramatic poem; anything full of events is Narrative, and emotions, Lyrical. With that said:





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