Andrey's questions about poems (split from the intro thread)

[AndreyGaganov]

Really, as literature, and viewing things in a historical context, it's prose that's contrived, seeking to capture everything that can be captured in a semi-immortal form (as if our minds were printers), ...

1) What prose writer would think of our minds as printers? 
2) True, prose in writing is contrived. But what of poetry? Isn't poetry in writing contrived? 

... and attempting to conform the language of conversation to aesthetic purposes.

I can't think of a time when conversational prose was bound to aesthetics. 

In your context, perhaps poetry seems the more contrived --- but, even if everyone didn't agree with that view of history, to say so in a poetry-oriented website is just imprudent.

(The historical aspect just seems to keep coming back like a boomerang.) Historically, poems were passed on from generation to generation. How were metaphors for oral poems chosen back in the day? 

In your context, perhaps poetry seems the more contrived --- but, even if everyone didn't agree with that view of history, to say so in a poetry-oriented website is just imprudent.

How so? There's a reason I said that, the reason being is to present a notion I've developed about poetry over my lifetime that I feel I have to be disabused of.