Running Away

Poetry is The difference between a man who shoots others and then himself and one who shoots others and runs away.

Literally. Fanny Howe put those exact words in one of her poems. They are poetry. They are an example of poetry. So one of the things that poetry is is them.

Typically. The poem does not spell out nor clarify the composer’s possible thoughts on that difference. The difference between those two varieties of spree killers is the moon to which the poem points, suggesting you, reader, look in that direction and think your own thoughts, maybe ruminate, maybe muse.

Anecdotally. Once you mentored an interdisciplinary student from Iceland, combining majors in Criminal Justice and Developmental Psychology. For her thesis, she researched possible childhood developmental differences between serial killers and spree killers. Not quite the same thing, but it landed her a position in Sweden. You wrote her a good recommendation.

Parably. Poetry shoots itself, too, not just others. Not just itself, of course. It’s no mere suicide. Poetry is a crime against individuals and society, but then, too, it is a crime against itself. That’s the difference.

Analogously. Poetry is an unknown and a puzzlement that possibly does not exist, or is at most, a coincidence, like the difference between a man who shoots others and then himself and one who shoots others and runs away.