Jonathan Mayhew is
"increasingly interested in language as it actually already exists rather than language as it is dressed up for various "poetic" uses. That is, I like poems that make use of the ways in which language is already alive and poetic, rather than those that view ordinary language as insufficient and attempt to remedy this situation."
Josh Corey believes that
"in addition to being whatever else it is, poetry, by being composed of language, resembles and tends to draw into itself recognizable chunks of other sorts of discourse: argument, philosophy, begging letters, what have you. This creates a confusion that you could lament, or that you could accept as intrinsic to the form and therefore just as you play with rhyme, alliteration, imagery, etc."
Language "as it actually already exists" is, of course, partially comprised of "recognizable chunks" of various discourses. Poetry (I would expand this to self-consciously "literary" language in general) will inevitably draw the already-existing elements of linguistic practice into itself, and, as Jonathan points out, often enough the most "poetic" uses of language come from an imaginative shuffling of these elements rather than a straining after the kind of ornamental effect some readers associate with poetry.
I am interested in these comments because too often, in my opinion, readers interpret writing that incorporates the kinds of discourse Josh Corey mentions as somehow signalling an intention to make arguments or engage in debates about "philosophy" very broadly construed. Since literature occurs in a less "pure" medium than painting or sculpture or music, it is finally impossible to entirely avoid leading fiction and poetry into such debates (or at least into debates about whether they are indeed participating in debates), but as Josh says, for readers and critics to rush in after them and assume that "signs" operate in literary language exactly as they do in ordinary discourse is to ignore the fact that poets ultimately see them as something to "play with as a material for poetry." (Often enough, in order to deliberately confound our "ordinary" understanding of language as communication.)
There's something about the element of "play" in literature that makes certain kinds of readers and critics impatient. (Especially American readers. If we must have "literature," let's have it straight, please. Just tell me what you mean.) If they can't simply dismiss it, they'll wrangle it into shape as a vehicle for this or that rhetorical gesture, either one that can be approved or one that merits only our disregard. (I'm thinking of the kind of fiction review to be found in such publications as The New Republic and the New York Review of Books, as well as all the endless complaining about "postmodern" excess.) Neither are these critics likely to appreciate "the ways in which language is already alive and poetic," since this would call into question their own reduction of language into acts of critical drudgery and trivial blather. Of course, most such critics (and most book reviews and other "literary" publications) generally ignore poetry anyway, which only seems to confirm we don't really like our art to be too arty.