© by Raymond Alexander Kukkee
Durer: Revelation Four Riders
"If verse rings hollow and is not heartfelt and inspired, it is unlikely to be good poetry."
Does the Greatest Poetry Come from the Heart, or from the Mind? Perhaps the desire to write poetry occurs in the mind, but the wherewithal to write and express perfection in poetry is nourished in the soul and embedded within the heart . Expression offered in any literary work is a statement from the soul, and is often a direct and explicit pleading to, and communication with other souls. The mind correlates and organizes, but the heart, as the fountain of the soul, resonates and expresses the innermost, sentient being. Like the greatest works of visual art, great poetry comes from the heart and soul. "Self-expression is a kindness to the soul that so invests" speaks to the requirement of a soul to express itself ever more clearly with resonance from the heart. In doing so, the mind is soothed and encouraged to address that eternal human requirement. The mind can subsequently help, exclude, minimize, or even totally ignore, specifically and obstinately, soulful ideas or thoughts, but can never eliminate the true resonance of the heart in self-expression. Perhaps that is the conundrum of inspiration. A page of mechanically-produced words, be it created by rote or calibrated, organized mind, hardly elicits the enigmatic soul of pure poetry that resonates from the heart. Whether poetry be Haiku, iambic pentameters or free prose, rhyme with rhythm or not, the same conditions apply. If verse rings hollow and is not heartfelt and inspired, it is unlikely to be good poetry. Poetic license is also involved when a collection of simple or complex words must be gauged, clarified, and organized by the mind, but that inclusion does not guarantee greatness or perfection. Poetry that luminesces and reflects that magnificent, inspired word, however, and poetry that comes only as flawless emanations from the heart, far exceeds the definition and effect of any collection of mere words clarified and organized into poetry assembled even by the best artistic mind. Little doubt remains; the best and greatest poetry comes from the heart. ## Is that Incoming I hear? 
