What a poets basic building blocks: words, images or thoughts?
A poet’s basic tools are their words. Imagery in the poem can be more of an advanced tool, it helps a poem if it conveys a vivid, powerful image of some sort, but that’s something to aim for with more speciality. It’s far from basic. It’s the basic flow of the words, and the emotion carried in them (as opposed to their literal meaning), that give poetry a lot of its artistic power and value. Words couldn’t be considered the true “Content” of a poem any more than lines and shapes and colours could be considered the “Substance” of a painting or photo, but they are the most essential tools any poet has at their disposal. As for thoughts, those are not so much a poet’s tool as they are a poem’s product. Conveying one’s thoughts clearly and exactly in well-done poetry is next to impossible, and beside the point anyway. If anything, an excess of thoughts is one of poetry’s most devastating natural foils. In most good poetry, thoughts only come into the equation when someone reads or hears th
