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Poetry is music, and nothing but music. Words with musical emphasis.
Amiri Baraka
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Poetry is fundamentally a musical form of expression using words.

Amiri Baraka suggests that poetry should be understood as a form of music, emphasizing the rhythm and sound of words rather than merely their meaning. This perspective encourages readers to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of language and how these qualities evoke emotions similar to musical compositions.

Themes

PoetryMusicWordsExpressionArt

In practice

Example use cases

In a poetry reading, when discussing the role of sound in verse.

More from Amiri Baraka

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
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what is lost because it is most precious what is most precious because it is lost
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I am inside someone who hates me. I look out from his eyes.
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And now each night, I count the stars. And each night I get the same number. And when the stars won't come to be counted, I count the holes they leave.
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The attempt to divide art and politics is a bourgeois which says good poetry, art, cannot be political, but since everything is … political, even an artist or work that claims not to have any politics is making a political statement by that act.
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I am inside someone_x000D_ who hates me. I look_x000D_ out from his eyes. Smell_x000D_ what fouled tunes come in_x000D_ to his breath. Love his_x000D_ wretched women.
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