Another easy definition

"A great poem is a perfect blend of sense and sound; it is memorable speech." Another easy definition, bewitchingly well-put. I've been making a list of the definitions of 'poetry' and 'a [good/great/worthy] poem' I come across (maybe at some point I'll steer my curiosity toward a research project). So far, the definitions have all been poetically phrased and absurdly untrue. Even reading them generously, I can't get past their blithe partiality. And even granting that most everything is partial -- doubly so, only part of the story and only part of the story according to you -- partiality should never be blithe. Otherwise, ignorance at best and minor intellectual totalitarianism at worst.

In the case of well-blended sense and sound, the half of the story left out is that some great poems are merely visual, deliberately or effectively. Not every poem resounds in the ear; some resound only in the eye or the inner understanding. Not to mention the deaf (and Deaf) poets who sign their poems.

Are we stuck? Are all epigrams and short shocking claims ultimately pretty shining lies? If so, as a self-described truth-seeker, I'm screwed: One of my main poetic modes is a kind of concatenated or continuous epigram.

The hope I'm hoping to rely on is the regard one can have for what is not said or not sayable. But how to write that regard in, and how to read it out? I don't know. I'm still working on that. It borders on one of the bigger questions I have: how to know what you say is true. Don't launch "What is truth?" against me. Truth is in your conscience, and in mine, and bits of it echo in the 3 or 4 philosophical theories of it.

All told, I love definitions, things nestled and things nested. I'm trying to catch what I can in webs that don't kill or maim, and which acknowledge the worlds small and large they connect. Things caught only for the moment actual.