The connection between music and poetry

Question 1

The connection between music and poetry that Joy Harjo talks about is that both work in tandem with one another. She indicates that most poetry in the world is sang ( Harjo, 2008, 0.34). In addition to this, the Oliver poetry traditions which are indigenous have been used as a basis for her argument. She further indicates that initially, when poetry was established in the world, it came in with music. People only later on changed it to come up with their own versions which appealed to them. As a result a majority of people end up placing the two elements separately yet they bear a lot of correspondence to each other. By incorporating elements of poetry into music, this is an initiative that is capable of ensuring that it reclaims its origin and also that it goes back to be the way it was initially. People tend to believe that the aesthetic nature of poetry is transmitted through the books, however, it is apparent that poetry`s artistic nature emanated from music, and it is this feature that serves to edify it. 

Question 2

People often think that poetry doesn`t have any music behind them like lyrics do, however, they are wrong. I personally believe that poetry should be defined differently from music lyrics. This is due to a number of reasons. For instance, one has to understand that poetry has inherently greater literary merit compared to music lyrics. Moreover, compared to poetry, lyrics are easier to compose. This is due to the fact that poetry requires mastery of literary mannerisms which reflect serious and well thought out constructions ( Finnegan, 2018 ). Besides, in order for one to come up with poetry that is up to some acceptable standards, they have to utilize formal language or a metric form of linguistics. On the contrary, lyrics do not necessarily demand any special kind of formality. Instead, the greatest focus is mostly on the rhyme. 

References 

Finnegan, R. (2018).  Oral poetry: its nature, significance and social context . Wipf and Stock Publishers. 

Harjo, Joy. (2008, Oct 29). Joy Harjo: interview About Her New CD. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/_tXCtqNdFaU