Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
But poetry is a way of language, it is not its subject or its maker's background or interests or hobbies or fixations. It is nearer to utterance than history.
Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.
For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.
I would admit that poetry is something more than mere communication and that if that 'something more' could be abstracted from the whole, it might well prove to be that which makes the whole a poem.
I love to compare different time frames. Poetry can evoke the time of the subject. By a very careful choice of words you can evoke an era, completely throw the poem into a different time scale.
I think that as a poet, I am always concerned about history and baring witness to history. But so often, it's through the research that I do, the reading.
Poetry isn't just different from prose, it's more important for the human species.
I think we fool ourselves and really negate a great deal of history if we think that the oral history of poetry is shorter than the written history of poetry. It's not true. Poetry has a longer oral tradition than it does written.