Many a definition has been given to poetry by poets and critics. Wordsworth said that poetry was the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions.3 Coleridge said that it is the best words in the best order. 4 T.S. Eliot thought that poetry comes from the language of the people representing its powers.5 Matthew Arnold said that poetry is a criticism of life.6 Ezra Pound said that the art of poetry is not simpler than the art of music.7 Paul Valerie said that poetry is language within language.8 Today we are happy to imagine that poetry is something written or printed on paper.

When we carefully look into the definitions given by poets and critics of the past, we understand that all attempts to define poetry inclined towards becoming an attempt to define poetic language. But in the explanations of the poets and critics of our time, the consciousness and concern about language is at its highest. Yet, all views are only partial. Poetry refuses to be contained within the grammar provided by structuralism or deconstruction. It thrives and survives, despite the definitions provided by time. Basuwayya's poem points to this:

Write you, your poem

Nagore Rumi

Click here to read from the begining: The Language of Poetry and the Language of Prose: A Study of Modern Tamil Literature