The relationship between poetry and theory is often brought under the term ‘poetics’, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as both ‘the branch of knowledge that deals with the techniques of poetry’ and ‘a treatise on poetic art (specifically that written by Aristotle)’. This two-sidedness – that poetics is about technical features and about a broader philosophical view – characterises the long history of writing that attends to the question, what is poetry? As the introductory sections of The Poetry Toolkit detail, poetry is thought of both as a type of writing or oral performance that demonstrates specific aesthetic features that set it apart from prose, and it is thought of as a category of communication that intimates experiences and perspectives that are ‘more than worldly’, both (contradictorily) unique and universal. To use theory to consider poetry is thus to contribute to this ancient debate about how poetry ‘works’ and to what significant end. Any exploration of these ideas will quickly reveal that the conjunction between poetry and theory is one that both suggests and dismantles the idea of categories: there are theories that set poetry apart, and there are theories that insist on its continuation with all other forms of communication. That said, it can be helpful to observe some distinctions: there are theories of poetry particularly (poetics); there is poetry’s relationship to ‘Theory’, usually taken to be the ‘literary theory’ that draws on allied disciplines such as philosophy, psychology and linguistics and which emerged in academic writing across the twentieth century; and there is poetry’s relationship to theory in the broadest terms, i.e. to the conceptual basis of ideas, practices and ideologies that structure the world. Inevitably, poetry transgresses the borders between these three areas: it is poetry, it is literary, it is worldly.

All of the writing in both the print and the online sections of The Poetry Toolkit at some level engages theoretical positions even if these aren’t explicitly stated. Any discussion of poetry implicitly contributes to debates about how poetry works, about its significance, and about how it should (or could) be understood; by these means, all writing about poetry is at some level theoretical. But looked at head on, the coupling of ‘poetry’ and ‘theory’ can be confusing or daunting – in the words of Calum Gardner, in the apparently ‘doubly abstracted field of poetry/theory’, the stakes are high because ‘poetry is, to paraphrase [Roland] Barthes, language working to show itself how powerful it is, and language’s power can be terrible’ (p. 2). The field of poetry/theory is broad and diverse and can’t be covered in a short essay, but here I offer some inroads into some areas of this complex territory. For a monumental and authoritative guide through the complexities of poetry, poetics, and theory see The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.