When we beseech we implore screechingly. The act of beseeching is melded with a posture of self abasement in the form 5 Arabic verb taḍarra^u. The Wehr definitions include implore, beg and entreat. Also, to humiliate oneself, which in English connotative usage isn’t the same as having humility or being humble, is it? Does a person in authority demand groveling in exchange for favor? 7.55
“Poetry belongs to all who write, read, sing and sign it.”
(Adrian Matejka)
”A wild and capacious art” is how Adrian Matejka describes it. The editor of Poetry knows whereof he speaks, though I would hazard that other art forms besides poetry — opera, square dance, zither music — “belong” to their respective buffs, too. It’s an orotund assertion with wide application — the opposite of exclusionary.
Poetry spurns elitism, Matejka writes:
It is “for the people,” as June Jordan taught us — despite the exclusionary positions of some critics. This communal posture is what makes poetry open to anyone who wants to engage with it as a writer or as a reader…
Who doesn’t want to be enthused by a communal posture? In the rarefied world of poetry readership, two’s company, three’s a community. Widening the scope of what counts as poetry helps:
Some of the great poet-emcees like Rakim and Chuck D introduced me to the concept of poetry… They showed me… that poetry’s habits are universal and transferrable across mediums… It is malleable, transcending the strictures of its particular, versified container.
Ryan Ruby* states the case less floridly:
All concepts are vague, but at present there is no consensus as to what poetry even is, how to define a poem, or who counts as a poet, which is perhaps why we have settled, a little uneasily, on a manifestly circular definition of poetry: a poem is whatever a person recognized as a poet says is a poem.
* Context Collapse: A Poem Containing a History of Poetry
(c) 2025 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved
EthicalDative 
La poesía siempre navega entre el misterio y la luz. Un poco como el amor, diría yo. No?
Me encanta la ilustración también me gustaría saber lo que hay escrito sobre ella.😂😂.
Salud.
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¡Un saludo, Azurea20! Lo dicho de la poesía (y del amor) es acertado. Tienes mucho “insight” (¿cómo decir eso?) en ello. La especie de ilustración que ensayo procura incorporar mis labores estudiosos del árabe en un formato vagamente gráfico que responda al impulso de dibujar. Siento el acto de escribir árabe como acto de dibujo. Me inspiras a precisar en el futuro lo que digan mis garabatos.
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Interesting stuff to think about Jim! I especially like your colourful artwork incorporating handwritten text.
(Do you remember Rupert Murdoch saying it was ‘the most humble day of his life’ when he was facing an inquiry into his company’s illegal phone hacking scandal? It seemed an inappropriate, ungrammatical sentence – I don’t imagine he even knows what humble means!)
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I relish your comment on my “art,” Sue. I’ve just responded to Azurea20 that I experience the exercise of writing Arabic as an act of drawing, so why not try to make my studies into “illustrations” now and then? I’m new to watercolor and it lends itself to slopping on the page by awkward hands! I love your citation of Murdoch’s “humble” day. I hadn’t heard of it before. He’s a corrupt old cancer on journalism, but I have to believe he’s literate enough to distinguish “humble” from “humiliating” and dishonest enough to choose the less true but more self-aggrandizing term to save face for himself in a pinch. It’s not exactly a “humble brag,” but that idiom is useful to describe another form of manipulating discourse in one’s favor via what I suppose used to be called “false modesty.”
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I agree completely about the ‘humble brag’ of Murdoch, Jim. His willful misuse of ‘humble’ is an example of his disregard for society’s expectations about ethical behavior. (sounds like someone else too) But then again, every norm seems to be upturned at the moment.
All the best. Sue
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