This essay examines the meaning of the word "poetic" as an adjective, arguing that it functions as a superlative tied to poetry's unique capacity to express the indescribable. Through close readings of LeRoi Jones's Black Magic Poetry and Charles Williams's untitled poem from 90 Degrees, the paper demonstrates how figurative language transcends literal meaning to evoke beauty, inspiration, and emotional intensity. The essay also explores how the term "poetic" can be applied broadly — to actions, daily routines, and speech — as a way of romanticizing ordinary experience and gesturing toward the sublime.
When the word poetic is used as a superlative to describe something, it means that whatever that thing is evokes poetry in the best way possible. The true definition of the term poetic, then, relates to the definition of poetry itself. Despite the fact that there are a number of different connotations that poetry can take on — as denoted by the many varieties of poems and their characteristics — above all else poetry is a human form of shaping words to describe the indescribable. The best of poetry is ineffable, especially by conventional methods of writing and speaking. Thus, the only way someone can describe something truly sublime, something with the ability to transcend reality through truth or beauty, is by relying on poetry.
When one refers to the term poetic as an adjective for something such as a sunset, a lunchbox, or a story, one is implying that the thing in question possesses some transcendent quality beyond mere reality — and in a positive way. The actual shapes and forms that the poetic can take on are interminable. What is uniform about all those shapes and forms — what allows the poetic to have a definition at all — is that they are all superlative in some sense or another. They are unusual in their convictions, in their strength, and in some aspect that is undoubtedly beneficial and worthy of praise.
An analysis of poetry and certain words in poems certainly proves as much. Consider the following lines from LeRoi Jones's Black Magic Poetry: "Why can't we love each other and be beautiful? / Why do the beautiful corner each other and spit poison?" (Jones). In these verses, the poet discusses the nature of beautiful people and their relationship with love. The first line could serve as mere prose — a simple question asked by a simple man. The second line, however, is unapologetically poetic. From a literal perspective, beautiful people certainly do not sequester one another to spit poison. Yet there is a certain poetry in saying that they do. On the figurative level of interpretation, the vileness of such imagery reinforces the magnitude of the author's preceding question. It serves to reinforce the beauty — the indescribable beauty shaped by love — that would be woefully desecrated if the second line were literally true, which, being figurative, it certainly is not.
"Poetic applied broadly to mundane actions"
"Poetic language animates and emotionally elevates"
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