A lot of people (new to poetry mostly or a real poet after getting high or drunk) may once or twice ask this question: "Who is a poet?" and "What's a poem, truly?"
My 10 year old cousin once announced me a poet during her 9th birthday party because two of my sentences rhymed! (It happens a lot to our kind. So don't mind.)
Yeah, sure, just get the last word of this sentence a bit same as the last word of the last sentence.
No pretence.
Just a chance,
To prove your vocabulary is good
And emotions intense,
Though sometimes it couldn't
Make sense!
Anyway, so who should you call a poet?
Let's start with something beautiful:
"Poets are all who love, — who feel great truths, and tell them."
-Philip James Bailey
It's conspicuous that poets have a lot in them what it takes to be a Philosopher. So a poet is always a philosopher and while the vice versa in most cases might not be true, it's good to know that your silent friend who writes poetry is actually part-time Philosopher too! Next time be sure to invite him on bonfire night or on a trip to mountains.
If we try to add more substance to the definition, we can say a Poet is a meditator. He meditates with words. When a person meditates he tries to ward off a million thoughts away and try to focus on two or three main thing like breathing, a mild focus between his eyebrows, something that really matters and can elucidate everything that is there: one's soul.
A Poet is someone who seeks souls. He's a seeker but not of life since life is too loud and too bright. Poet lives in a gray band, where sounds are low, almost like the music of rain.
When a person seeks what's written above and lives in the aforesaid manner, he creates his encounters with souls.
These encounters with a soul create ripples that leaves beautiful fragments of what a poet has seen in its wake.
Some great men have said:
"Poetry is what gets lost in translation." said Robert Frost.
"Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind,
because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science." said Sigmund Freud!
Now, my favorite:
"Poetry is an orphan of silence.
The words never quite equal the experience behind them." said Charles Simic.
And for those who are perpetual amused by the poems (Me! Me! Me!), here's a quote to you people:
"A poem is never finished, only abandoned."
- Paul Valery
Go fellow steemians, seek your soul and smile and abandone.