Britannica's Poetry: Definitions Of Poetry

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1. Poetry Definition Poetry is defined by Britannica as a kind of literature “that evokes a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm” (par. 1). Poetry started a long time ago as rituals in early agricultural societies; it arose in the form of magical spells that used to be recited to ensure a good harvest. Poetry is dependent upon one or more parameter. Poetry has the tendency to make incremental repetition, variation, and the treatment of many matters and different themes in a single recurrent form such as couplet or stanza. Language is divided into poetry and prose. Prose style is writing words in the best order while poetry …show more content…

His vivid, exact, sensory imagery is often a mode of knowing, feeling, and reaching out. The poetry of spirit; in this poetry the deepest relationship is that between the individual and a timeless essence beyond – though linked with – artistic beauty. An example of poets if spirit are Arthur Sze (1950- ), who is said to have a Zen-like sensibility. His poems offer meditations; and Jane Hirshfield (l953-) who refers to Buddhism in her poems. The poetry of nature focuses on person’s relation to nature. Today environmental concerns inform a powerful strain of ecologically oriented U.S. poetry. James Welch, Leslie Marmon Silko, Pattiann Rogers (1940- ), Maxine Kumin (1925- ) and Mary Oliver, who is one of the most celebrated poets of nature, and evokes plants and animals with visionary intensity, are poets of nature. The poetry of Wit includes humor, a sense of the incongruous, and flights of fancy. It depends on the “intersection of two or more frames of reference and on acute discrimination; this is a worldly poetry” (sec. 9).This kind of poetry has a humorous, surrealistic, or allegorical pitch. The language it uses is colloquial. Billy Collins (1641 - ) is one of the most influential poets of wit today. He uses everyday language to record the myriad details of everyday life, freely mixing quotidian events (eating, doing chores, writing) with cultural references. The poetry of history is the most difficult and ambitious of all. The faith of poets of history is in experience. Some poets of history are: Michael S. Harper, who interweaves African-American history with his family's experiences in a form of montage; Frank Bid art has similarly merged political events such as the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy with personal life; and Robert Pinsky (1940- ) who links colloquial speech to technical virtuosity, and his

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