04-20-2023, 01:54 PM
Generally, I would say that 'telling' is the meaning of a poem, whereas 'showing' is the tactile five-sense feeling of a poem.
Showing: I can feel sunlight as a real sensation on my skin, I can visualize the sun in a sunset, I can smell a barbecue in the sun, I can taste the burger in the sun, I can hear the sizzle of the grill in the sun. This is feeling.
Telling: your love is like the sun. This is explaining meaning.
In my opinion, feeling is way more important than meaning in poetry - which is why the "show, don't tell" advice that is common is generally good advice. The feeling of eating a delicious meal has no objective 'meaning', but it is objectively tangible and subjectively beautiful - that's the type of thing I think art is about, communicating (showing) feeling. The opposite, meaning with no feeling - i.e (telling) 'I love you' is much less interesting to me.
I think the strongest writing generally combines showing and telling in a subtle way with metaphor etc that makes both the feeling and meaning stronger, but of course there are no rules in art.
Take my signature for instance, it's a Mitch Hedberg joke - and much more about telling than showing (although showing the image of a hippotamus adds extra absurd feeling to the meaning), but it's beautiful to me even though it skews to 'tell' rather than 'show' - the combination is delightful. I think showing has a higher batting average for generating that delight than telling - but that is just my perspective.
Showing: I can feel sunlight as a real sensation on my skin, I can visualize the sun in a sunset, I can smell a barbecue in the sun, I can taste the burger in the sun, I can hear the sizzle of the grill in the sun. This is feeling.
Telling: your love is like the sun. This is explaining meaning.
In my opinion, feeling is way more important than meaning in poetry - which is why the "show, don't tell" advice that is common is generally good advice. The feeling of eating a delicious meal has no objective 'meaning', but it is objectively tangible and subjectively beautiful - that's the type of thing I think art is about, communicating (showing) feeling. The opposite, meaning with no feeling - i.e (telling) 'I love you' is much less interesting to me.
I think the strongest writing generally combines showing and telling in a subtle way with metaphor etc that makes both the feeling and meaning stronger, but of course there are no rules in art.
Take my signature for instance, it's a Mitch Hedberg joke - and much more about telling than showing (although showing the image of a hippotamus adds extra absurd feeling to the meaning), but it's beautiful to me even though it skews to 'tell' rather than 'show' - the combination is delightful. I think showing has a higher batting average for generating that delight than telling - but that is just my perspective.