The document explores the nature of poetry as a word game, delving into its characteristics such as rhythm, meter, and evocative language that evoke emotion and imagination. It emphasizes poetry's dual aspects of craftsmanship and enjoyment, highlighting its pedagogical value and the interplay between poet and reader. Approaching poetry requires intelligence and an understanding of various dimensions, including linguistic and musical elements.

1. POETRY AS A WORD GAME
- IS POETRY REALLY A GAME? HOW CAN WE
CALL IT A GAME? OR, WRITE A SHORT NOTE
ON POETRY AS A WORD GAME?
Poetry : originally from a Greek root meaning “to
make”: poet – a maker.
- Controversy over essential characteristics of
poetry. For some – meter or rhythm distinguishing
trait. For others – quality of the poet’s vision,
sensory quality of the language. According to some,
poetry – a special kind of symbolic language.
- Poetry or verse – recognized by its unusually rich
use of such features as rhythm, pitch, meter and
connotation.

2. POETRY AS A WORD GAME
- And hence, Poetry is composition that evokes emotion and
imagination by the use of vivid, intense language usually
arranged in a pattern of words or lines with a regular repeated
accent or stress. In content poetry expresses thoughts that
are significant and sincere. It is marked by the presence of
rhythm.
- Whatever the patterns of the lines, there is a regularity of rise
and fall in accent that is more uniform than that of prose.
- Repeated rhymes and rhyme schemes frequently add to the
musical effect of the verse.
- A vital element in poetry is the use of the concrete words and
specific, evocative (productive in mind) language. Because
poetry is an intense form of expression, words are chosen for
their connotations and associations. Poetic expression is rich
in figures of speech and imagery. It appeals to the readers
imagination, recreating and communicating the deep feelings
the poet has experienced.

3. POETRY AS A WORD GAME
- Poetry makes nothing happen. Yet if a reader is reluctant,
poetry can give them pleasure as much as they get it from a
game. Poetry depends on a poet’s craftsmanship. It is also a
kind of language game like physical games that make sound
minds, poetry game also some uses:
- Exercise of imagination: it exercise a valuable though perhaps
“unsound” side of the mind: imagination. Coleridge says that
poetry is born out of imagination.
- Craftsmanship: it develops ability to control and respond to
language
- Pleasure: all forms of literature intend to please us. Poetry
amuses us with its musical technical devices. It gives aesthetic
satisfaction.
- Walter Peter says that we appreciate beauty for its own sake
and not for its moral or other utility. There are simple as well
as complicated poems that intend to give pleasure.

4. POETRY AS A WORD GAME
Pedagogical or didactic (teaching) advantage:
for Philip Sidney, poetry is an art of imitation for a
specific purpose. It imitates to “teach and delight”. A
poet does not imitate but creates; it is the reader who
imitates what the poet creates.
Exercise to the senses:
William wordswoth defines poetry as “spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings”. In this sense, all kinds of
sensory perceptions are motivated by poetry. Emotion,
sentiments, feelings and thoughts are also developed and
exercised by poetry. And, hence poetry is essentially a
game, with artificial rules, and it takes two - a writer and
a reader – to play it, if the reader is reluctant, the game
will not work.

5. Approaching a poem
To get into different aspects of a poem, intelligence is
fundamentally required. Nevertheless, we can’t deny the truth
that guideline hints, knowledge of literary terms, exercise,
labor and interest are also much more effective while
approaching a poem. There are many approaches to different
poems. We may study and judge a poem by taking words and
ideas in its context.
- We should point out expressive dimension of the poem.
Nature and situation of the speaker should be noted
down.
- We should consider narrative-dramatic dimension and
the descriptive-meditative dimension in the poem. We
should also learn whether the interest in the poem is
related with psychological facts and behavior or
philosophical facts.

6. Approaching a poem
- We should pay attention to the play of language –
metaphor, irony, images, tone etc.
- While reading a poem, it is necessary to pay special
attention to its musical dimension – rhythm, rhyme,
melodies, harmonies etc.
Mocking Love
Hallucinated by a painful memory
Emptiness riding over me
Nihilistic, I may sound
Yet raising questions on my being and on my smile

7. Approaching a poem
Shadows and shoddy memory
Gnawing pain, pangs and pathos
Scratching me and my inner core of heart
Sobbing, wailing for my spoilt meaningless decade
Making, remaking and again making
But there you are to piing on me and my endeavor
With your reason
Pointing out my stupidity
Shocking till my throat
You suddenly realized a bitter taste of my saliva
With your consent; committed countless sins

8. Approaching a poem
Alas!
Now your bewitching eyes
Disenchanted mine
Your oppression
Stolen moments at the bank of Holy Bagmati
Stolen kisses while splashing water at Gaurighat
burning me like a hovering clouds from a burning pyre
burning outside, inflaming inside; chaos, tumult
your appearance slowly disappearing
now, just now
I leant you
Demystifying you
Discontinuity of our meeting everywhere, nowhere, anywhere
No more
Difference, indifference
Dispersion and hence
I'm shattered, scattered in the bits of memory

9. Approaching a poem
Evening Pashupatighat
Aarati of Monday Evening
Incanting incantation, evocating evocation
Your glowing faces within face
Slowly unmasking yourself
Mocking me, my love, my stupidity….