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Originally Posted by Chibi-Chan
But what I found interesting is what he said himself in his lecture "but songs are unlike literature. They're meant to be sung, not read".
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This is a great point, and it goes well with the conclusion of the essay
Andrenekoi linked:
Quote:
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But that does not mean that song lyrics are poems. They might sometimes accidentally function like poems when taken out of a musical context, but abstracting lyrics from musical information is misleading and beside the point. It seems to me far more productive to ask how lyrics in songs relate to musical information, and how poems relate to the silences (cultural and actual) that surround them, and to recognize that lyrics and poetry, while different genres with different forces and imperatives, have both more and less in common than we might think, and are endeavors of equal value.
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What I get from this is that "are Ayu's lyrics poetry" is not really the right question to ask. I think her lyrics contain varying amounts of traditional poetic elements (sound patterning and rhythmic elements at least) and some might even function well when performed as poetry, as in, spoken aloud without music (I never listened to the "poetry reading" version of æternal and can't find it now but I wonder how it sounds and works). But they might not be poetry — because they weren't written to be poetry. And that is perfectly fine, because lyrics are no less worthy, meaningful, or
art than poetry (as you also mentioned in an earlier reply).
But that does not mean her lyrics aren't
poetic, which seems to be where this whole discussion started:
mizuki-7 commented on Ayu as a songwriter, saying "she is gifted and poetic", and you,
Chibi-Chan, commented on the topic: "I honestly don't know why people always say her lyrics would be poetic". And I agree with
mizuki-7 here because "poetic" means more than "like or relating to poetry" — I think what people often mean by "poetic" is something like "beautiful, touching and thought-provoking". And dictionaries seem to agree: Longman ("having qualities of deep feeling or graceful expression"),
Cambridge ("very beautiful or expressing emotion"),
Oxford ("Having an imaginative or sensitively emotional style of expression"),
Merriam-Webster ("having or expressing the qualities of poetry (as though aesthetic or emotional impact)"). I think Ayu's lyricism fits those descriptions.
So even if Ayu's lyrics aren't poetry, I think they are definitely poetic. And I still think it would be fair to consider them poetry; poetry is such a broad term, and I think poetry is more diverse than you seem to consider it (and personally, I have considered lyrics kind of a subcategory of poetry for a long time). You said poetry follows rules — no, it doesn't. Traditional and codified forms of poetry follow rules but free verse doesn't, and that doesn't make free verse any less "poetry". I've read plenty of poems that don't follow any rules but I don't think anyone would deny that they are poems. And I don't even read a lot of poetry!
(I also want to say I really dislike you saying "I feel as if no one here as an actual interest in poetry"; that is so snobbish and patronizing and comes off aggressive. I also don't agree with your demand for someone to "prove" that Ayu's lyrics are poetry by giving a poetry analysis; you must know how much work you are asking for with that, right? And I'm not sure there's really a way to "prove" that something is poetry anyway.
I hope I'm not coming off aggressive myself, it's not my intention to attack you.)
((I apologize for my abuse of dashes and semicolons.
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I'd love to see discussion of the poetic elements in Ayu's lyrics, detached from the fraught question of whether her lyrics are poetry. I can't think of many examples off the top of my head (because I'm exhausted and I've already spent over two hours writing this reply, way too much), but there are things like the alliteration in connected and the repetitive structure of Ivy's verses and snowy kiss's chorus, and it would be interesting to consider how they are connected to and work with the songs' meanings and messages.