It Is Our Nature to Love... and Nature Is Our Inspiration

Book excerpt: Some readers may ask, why is a book of poems called a book of lyrics and songs, or vice versa? This may be because the word, poem, can be misused, and may be the most misused word in the English language, and leads one to be very cautious about using it. More recently the word poem, seems to have included pretty well any thing. What makes a good poem, who really knows? But it does seem have to be a little more than well-written prose. The Oxford dictionary describes a poem, as a piece of imaginative writing in verse and poetry as a quality of beauty or emotional power, poetry and fire, balanced in music. At what stage do songs and lyrics become poetry is not very clear but the connection is clearly very close.