Is a Poet an Artist?

Something I've found especially interesting throughout the poetry unit and in this week's blog posts is the speculation on what could actually be called poetry.  The general question of where to draw the line for things like this- poetry, art, music, etc- is asked often and is, in my opinion, unanswerable. We've been reading a variety of poems with different forms and schemes and lengths and even though we had the reading in the beginning, that is only one man's definition of poetry.

My dad hates on poetry often, calling it a lazy man's form of writing. I completely disagree. While I am neither a poet nor a writer, I feel that in order for poetry to be considered "good" by most people's standards, it has to be much more purposeful and thought out than an essay or story. Personally I find it much easier to write a descriptive couple of pages of a plot than have to convey feeling and rhythm in a few lines. Poetry might mean different things from person to person, but what I think might need to be standard is that it is purposeful. A writer can write a really stellar essay on an event but a poet brings out more than can be read in there. categorizing poetry is weird because even though it is a form of literature, couldn't we also call it art? or is it that literature is a branch off of art itself? Is a history textbook art?

I believe that it doesn't really matter. Even music- I don't think there can be good or bad music. If someone gets something out of listening to it, even if it's just the musician, then it's good. For art, I find it's also more about the feeling or reaction it gives you than the physical piece. Walking through the Art Institute, some people might look at a Monet and admire the brushstrokes and colors, and I love a good haystack myself, but does it have any feeling or purpose? You can them walk into the modern wing and look at 3 stripes of color on a canvas and you might ask yourself; what? why is this here? what does it mean? While other museum goers will stand there for 5 minutes. Unless an artist gives an explanation of their art on the side (like magicians, they usually do not) no one can really answer for sure. Same goes for poetry. It's just kind of whatever floats your boat.