Two blunt statements are almost at odds although both are indisputable: they do not claim the right to define poetry in absolute terms, but instead seek to give a more subjective view by declining to define the genre in everyday life.

Googling the definition of poetry, according to the Italian online dictionary Treccani we find the following definition: ‘Art (understood as the skill and ability) of producing verbal compositions in verse’^[1], and the inevitable Wikipedia: ‘Poetry is an art form that creates, through the choice and juxtaposition of words according to particular metrical laws, a composition made up of sentences called verses, in which the semantic meaning is linked to the musical sound of phonemes’.^[2]

The common word in both definitions is ‘art’ and in both cases, it is understood to be generated by an artist, namely the poet.

I would like now to introduce you to a possible view of art and the artist. The artist is a human being. Consequently, he or she is situated in a precise time and space. If space is a dependent, modifiable, non-absolute variable – i.e. the artist who is subject to the culture of the place can embrace other cultures, make them his or her own, or be inspired by them – then time is an independent variable that is both ‘fixed’ – i.e. the period of the artist’s life – and ‘moving’ – the course of his or her life, works and thought.

Since the artist is a human being, s/he is also subjected to imperfection: an artist’s main purpose is mediating  between the world and art. Once art is generated, it no longer belongs to the artist.

Art is the fruit of mediation between the world and the artist; once composed, it transcends its composer, it is generated by him/her; it portrays an instant of him/her, but then it separates itself forever and becomes simultaneously everyone’s and no one’s. It exists by its own nature.

Art is likewise bound by the coordinates of space and time in a similar way as the artist.

If we were to triadically sketch what exists on Earth, we could do so by omitting the various sub-categories and following with: the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom and art.

Art in the making interacts with the artist as a parasite would, and can therefore be divided into two macro-categories. The first is art as a symbiont, art that prolongs the artist’s life and constantly matures. In literature, I associate it with Dante or in modern times with Mann or Kawabata: every word is weighed, it is perfect where it is, and the result is that of the artist who improves to an extremely rare level of perfection. The second form is an art that feeds on the generating corpus to its own detriment: what results is the genius artist who wears out quickly but produces results that are comparable to the highest level achieved by the previous category in less time and with a different intensity, I am thinking of Keats or Dylan Thomas.

Now we just have to understand the utility of poetry and, with a synecdoche, of art.

Trying to imagine a discussion on this subject, I can only think of a café: it is during the evening, the narrow, wobbly table bears the weight of half-empty beer mugs, and someone hesitantly decides to begin the prophetic speech but is immediately interrupted by terse sentences concerning ‘vile money’. At this point, everyone agrees that, since it does not generate money, art is most certainly unuseful.

Useful comes from the Latin utĭle, a derivative of ūti ‘to use’, among other meanings we find that it can be a material or intellectual, moral advantage.

However, Horace wrote in an epistle called Ars Poetica:

Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae/aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae.

[…]

Omne tulit punctumqui miscuit utile dulci,/lectorem delectando pariterque monendo;

Therefore we can see that art and poetry can actually be useful: they certainly are objectively so when they fall within the didactic genre – think of De rerum natura, a genre that is now obsolete. On a more personal level, it becomes much more complex. Let us distinguish the poet from the reader: the latter misappropriates poetry by interpreting it primarily according to their own knowledge and experience, and in this regard, we can say that poetry is morally useful. Then there is also the ‘engaged’ reader, who does not interpret but studies, understands, contextualises, and thus, in addition to moral utility, there is also intellectual utility.

Why does the artist create? What utility does s/he gain from creating something that does not generate money? Well, for the poet, utility in poetry is life and death.

And so, useful poetry is packed away on shelves, unsold, left less printed and, at the same time, we increasingly fail to understand how life passes us by without ever being able to grasp it sensitively, let alone understand it in any depth. We then find ourselves stuck in a tedious conversation that seems to repeat itself infinitely the same and empty, and, when the last drop of the mug finishes, a suffocating silence settles in, leaving us alone.

Maybe one morning, walking in dry, glassy air,

I’ll turn and see the miracle occur:

nothing at my back, the void

behind me, with a drunkard’s terror.

Then, as if on a screen, trees houses hills

will suddenly collect for the usual illusion.

But it will be too late, and I’ll walk on silent

among the men who don’t look back, with my secret.

^[1]Ibidem, https:/

Two blunt statements are almost at odds although both are indisputable: they do not claim the right to define poetry in absolute terms, but instead seek to give a more subjective view by declining to define the genre in everyday life.

Googling the definition of poetry, according to the Italian online dictionary Treccani we find the following definition: ‘Art (understood as the skill and ability) of producing verbal compositions in verse’^[1], and the inevitable Wikipedia: ‘Poetry is an art form that creates, through the choice and juxtaposition of words according to particular metrical laws, a composition made up of sentences called verses, in which the semantic meaning is linked to the musical sound of phonemes’.^[2]

The common word in both definitions is ‘art’ and in both cases, it is understood to be generated by an artist, namely the poet.

I would like now to introduce you to a possible view of art and the artist. The artist is a human being. Consequently, he or she is situated in a precise time and space. If space is a dependent, modifiable, non-absolute variable – i.e. the artist who is subject to the culture of the place can embrace other cultures, make them his or her own, or be inspired by them – then time is an independent variable that is both ‘fixed’ – i.e. the period of the artist’s life – and ‘moving’ – the course of his or her life, works and thought.

Since the artist is a human being, s/he is also subjected to imperfection: an artist’s main purpose is mediating  between the world and art. Once art is generated, it no longer belongs to the artist.

Art is the fruit of mediation between the world and the artist; once composed, it transcends its composer, it is generated by him/her; it portrays an instant of him/her, but then it separates itself forever and becomes simultaneously everyone’s and no one’s. It exists by its own nature.

Art is likewise bound by the coordinates of space and time in a similar way as the artist.

If we were to triadically sketch what exists on Earth, we could do so by omitting the various sub-categories and following with: the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom and art.

Art in the making interacts with the artist as a parasite would, and can therefore be divided into two macro-categories. The first is art as a symbiont, art that prolongs the artist’s life and constantly matures. In literature, I associate it with Dante or in modern times with Mann or Kawabata: every word is weighed, it is perfect where it is, and the result is that of the artist who improves to an extremely rare level of perfection. The second form is an art that feeds on the generating corpus to its own detriment: what results is the genius artist who wears out quickly but produces results that are comparable to the highest level achieved by the previous category in less time and with a different intensity, I am thinking of Keats or Dylan Thomas.

Now we just have to understand the utility of poetry and, with a synecdoche, of art.

Trying to imagine a discussion on this subject, I can only think of a café: it is during the evening, the narrow, wobbly table bears the weight of half-empty beer mugs, and someone hesitantly decides to begin the prophetic speech but is immediately interrupted by terse sentences concerning ‘vile money’. At this point, everyone agrees that, since it does not generate money, art is most certainly unuseful.

Useful comes from the Latin utĭle, a derivative of ūti ‘to use’, among other meanings we find that it can be a material or intellectual, moral advantage.

However, Horace wrote in an epistle called Ars Poetica:

Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae/aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae.

[…]

Omne tulit punctumqui miscuit utile dulci,/lectorem delectando pariterque monendo;

Therefore we can see that art and poetry can actually be useful: they certainly are objectively so when they fall within the didactic genre – think of De rerum natura, a genre that is now obsolete. On a more personal level, it becomes much more complex. Let us distinguish the poet from the reader: the latter misappropriates poetry by interpreting it primarily according to their own knowledge and experience, and in this regard, we can say that poetry is morally useful. Then there is also the ‘engaged’ reader, who does not interpret but studies, understands, contextualises, and thus, in addition to moral utility, there is also intellectual utility.

Why does the artist create? What utility does s/he gain from creating something that does not generate money? Well, for the poet, utility in poetry is life and death.

And so, useful poetry is packed away on shelves, unsold, left less printed and, at the same time, we increasingly fail to understand how life passes us by without ever being able to grasp it sensitively, let alone understand it in any depth. We then find ourselves stuck in a tedious conversation that seems to repeat itself infinitely the same and empty, and, when the last drop of the mug finishes, a suffocating silence settles in, leaving us alone.

Maybe one morning, walking in dry, glassy air,

I’ll turn and see the miracle occur:

nothing at my back, the void

behind me, with a drunkard’s terror.

Then, as if on a screen, trees houses hills

will suddenly collect for the usual illusion.

But it will be too late, and I’ll walk on silent

among the men who don’t look back, with my secret.