In school, in literature class, we used to "analyse" poems, stories and plays. I always found it disheartening. It distracted from the real essence of the piece in front of us. I remember telling the teacher, silently, that she had successfully dissected yet another poem.
Javed Akhtar, advising young artists, said they should learn to balance art and craft. For art you need to forget the rules and let your imagination go wild. For craft you need discipline. The two pull against each other, and an artist has to balance them. That is the challenge. Our institutions, and our professions, focus almost entirely on craft, and the output is too often soulless.
Can software be art?
Thinking of software development as art feels strange at first. Game development is the closest you can get. But there are other examples. I once planned software that would draw your musical compositions as pictures. Algorithms can be compared to pieces of art, the way musical compositions can. And isn't an architect's design also art?
A poem has many perspectives
A poem is usually read on a page. It can also be heard, narrated aloud. A poem is rhythmic, so it is also a wave. A poem carries emotions, and emotions can be represented as colours; colours in turn can be related to music. So a poem can be perceived as a piece of music, or as a graph of colours that rise and fall with its feeling.
That is the point where art and craft meet. The imagination says a poem can be a wave, a colour or a song. The craft is in building the thing that renders it so: the model, the mapping, the system. Neither is enough alone.
Drafted in 2021
Updated for site in 2026