is poet made or born?

Is poet made or born?

An outlook to the illiterate societies in the old times, as well as the very advanced ones in the recent times, in our vast world, may help us to decide that the answer of this question cannot be taken for granted.

In the pre-Islamic era, the Arab tribes used to celebrate the birth of a poet. They know that their status among the other tribes depends on his authentic poetry. He will be their heard voices and their preserved document.

His poetic creation or rather instinct has been viewed as a gift from their gods and they can do nothing for him. Of course, they have their days of poetry and their critics who used to judge of the original poetic gifts. It means there is a distinction of the genius among the other poets. The best poem is always rewarding to be written with the gold water and hanged down on the walls of their holly house Mecca. But the best reward is the respect of the people and their love of this poem which will be current on their tongues for ages.

The reason of the appearance of the imitators is their wish to have a potential role in societies estimate the status of the poet. This type of rhymesters opens the door for poetry to be made in the big institutions of the creative writing. Anyone can be a poet if poetry is not more than a form of writing forms. Poetry is science. It can be taught and can be learnt by hardworking students and excellent teachers. But these great institutions cannot graduate or rather made a great poet if he does not have the seed to be a great poet. So if poetry is a form it can be made. If poetry is a form and content can only be given.

I sum up: poetry is a ladder on which the poets up and the imitators down. The ones who are down cannot move up with the help of all the scientific steps in the grand institutions of creative writing, but at least they can learn that there are poets up by birth.