There is no machine for judging poetry

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Life is messy and intractable, and it will defy your easy attempts to formularise it. Eighty percent of it will meet all your criteria. The other twenty will bugger up your plans. So: Beware the fat tail, and remember The Dead Poets’ Society. There is no machine for judging poetry.

KEATING: Gentlemen, open your text to page twenty-one of the introduction. Mr. Perry, will you read the opening paragraph of the preface, entitled “Understanding Poetry”? PERRY: Understanding Poetry, by Dr. J. Evans Pritchard, Ph.D. “To fully understand poetry, we must first be fluent with its meter, rhyme, and figures of speech. Then ask two questions: One, how artfully has the objective of the poem been rendered, and two, how important is that objective. Question one rates the poem’s perfection, question two rates its importance. And once these questions have been answered, determining a poem’s greatness becomes a relatively simple matter. If the poem’s score for perfection is plotted along the horizontal of a graph, and its importance is plotted on the vertical, then calculating the total area of the poem yields the measure of its greatness. A sonnet by Byron may score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal. A Shakespearean sonnet, on the other hand, would score high both horizontally and vertically, yielding a massive total area, thereby revealing the poem to be truly great. As you proceed through the poetry in this book, practice this rating method. As your ability to evaluate poems in this matter grows, so will - so will your enjoyment and understanding of poetry.” KEATING: Excrement. That’s what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard. We’re not laying pipe, we’re talking about poetry.

See also

• Fat tail
• Dead Poets’ Society
• Maxims for a happy life