Do poems have to make sense?

I would like to know if all poems have to make sense. Why?

I believe that to someone, the poem will always make sense in one way or another. A totally random choice of words may for instance be interpreted as a symbol for the poets state of mind, or how he sees the world.

Nothing is fully without meaning.

such is my faith=)

Ye well I like poems take make sense. That are deep. I don't like shallow poems, but hey thats me.

Well, I myself, like it when poems make sense. I would rather you tell me what you mean, then me trying to figure out what you mean and get it wrong. It's much easier on the read if its clear. Granted some hidden meanings are good if its not to hard to catch them. Its all about how you us it.

I think they should make sense as in your poem makes a point. Don't start to say something and then cut off in a totally new direction.

Most of my recent poems make absolutely no sense at all. In fact, they're mostly just random phrases that I've put together over a long period of time that somehow, in some distorted way, fit together, even if it's stretched. Poems don't HAVE to make sense ... usually readers perfer that they do so that when they finish reading, they don't have to sit there for an extra 30 seconds saying to themselves, "what the hell was that?!" ... even if it was good.

i personally dont think they have to make sense becoz alot of poems i have read dont, but what makes sense in one persons head might not in anothers. i know alot of things in my head dont make sense but on paper it all seem different.

The real question is: Make sense to who? Everyone has different life experiences....what makes sense to me may make no sense to the next person.

Example: Why do we drive on a parkway but park in a driveway? Makes no sense to me.

Why do deathrow inmates get a sterile needle for lethal injection?

Who puts pull dates on sour cream?

Chris...how the hell have you been?

Home with the flu....first day off in two weeks....gotta get sick to get time off....sales....I even went in for an hour on Thanksgiving to uncrate filing cabinets.

No....I'm still in. I have a laptop, but the cellular modem went back and I'm waiting for the mothership to send another one.

nah, they don't always have to make sense. Heck, my poem Zany-ynaZ? Doesn't make any sense, but it usually just makes it funnier.

my poems make sense to me when i write them but not necessarily when i read them after, take for example Bunny Sqwalkings...i wrote in a completely random mood so its total nonsense but thts wot makes it work!!!

i think they have to make sense to the writer, then others can find their own definition.

sammi xxx

Usually my ones just make sense to me and no one else.

na-uh. well to the writer yea...but to anybody else, no. or somethimes no. it doesnt even have to make sense to the writer

It only has to make sense to you.

Hi..
To me, my poems seem weird, depressing and unusual. To me, they make complete sense of my feelings and thoughts. Somehow my poetry only makes sense to me, that no one else will gain the same feeling or exposure as I have written it.
I like poems that keep you in suspense, and you have to just think of the circumstances of what could happen.
Nothing much in this world makes sense, and to me, writing poetry helps me understand some of the up and down feelings I encounter in my life..
:)

well its up to u... if u dont want them to, then dont make them no ones gonna judge.....

Thats just me.

Yeah, i think that When you write a poem, its your own, it makes sense to you, and it may make sense to others or it may not, weather its making the saem sense is another thing.

The poems i've submitted, sometimes i read back on them. they don't even make sense to me. Depends how i'm feeling

The Chicken (Haiku)
By Apathetic soul

Clocks are like the sky
When frogs sit on nail polish
Eating gummy bears.

It makes sense to me. When i read this i thought of the heavens. Clocks are time and time is in the sky. We invented time from planets and stars rotating and moving around the sun. As for the frog part, it ties into it all because we base everything off of time even though time may not really exist. And frogs sitting on nail polish eating gummy bears symbolizes that just because humans and bears are further down the line in evolution, mammals still don't have qualities that frogs do have, such as being able to live on land and in water.

the end.

Anyone can put meaning to anything, given the right circumstances .. ^ .. Poet and reader never will have the same two pictures in their head when writing/reading, respectively.. We've got to fish out concrete concepts (by abstracting or otherwise) so that the two different sets of eyes see the closest thing to truth two people could share. It's not much different than any other relationship that you don't fully understand..

i think that just as long as it is from your heart and it is what you feel and it makes sence to the person writing it then thats all that matters....