What is Poetry?
According to Webster's Dictionary, poetry is defined as "writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm." While this is the technical definition of poetry many writers attempted to further describe what poetry is. There are many contradicting views and no one can agree what is the essence of poetry. Some poets think that poetry is the expression of emotions and rules do not matter, while other poets suggest the poetry is all about the rules and the rhythm that must be followed. The perfect mix to define poetry is somewhere in between.
E.E. Cummings suggests, "feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things." According to Cummings, poetry is purely defined by the feelings the poem expresses and syntax plays no role. This is evident when he writes "for life's not a paragraph And death I think is no parenthesis." While poetry must express feelings and must create "imaginary gardens with real toads in them." Poetry cannot be defined by these standards alone. After all, without certain rules to define poetry any expression of emotion can be defined as poetry. While it is true that the main purpose of poetry is to create worlds and express emotions, poetry must also accomplish more.
Poetry must be music in the form of words. Some poets believe the definition of poetry is in the music it creates. "Smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong." Alexander Pope believed that a poem must be pleasant to the ear. A poem must follow certain rules. A poem can never "ring round the same unvaried chimes" and "[drag] its slow length along." Poems must "[whisper] through the trees" to please the reader's ear. For a poem to create music the poem must follow certain rules. What is the usefulness of a poem if it doesn't communicate any emotions to the reader in the end? It is nice to hear pleasant sounds but the goal of a poem cannot just be to produce pleasant sounds.
Poetry is often created by an author’s need to escape the logical, as well as expressing feelings and other expressions in a tight, condensed manner. Hundreds of poets have impacted society throughout history through phenomenal poetry that, even with dark tones can be emotionally moving.
Poetry is its own solid object” (Bad Poem, Great Song). To some, the dilemma is cut and dry, songs just can’t be poetry.
Poetry, is a literal writing where any human being can express themselves, feelings, or anything they desire. Some of them even write poems that touches us so much that we could almost feel and know what their going through. Audre Lorde, a professional and amazing writer, was a great example of that. She wrote about her experiences with cancer, black issues, and how attacks on being a lesbian was a black issue. There were reasons for that.
Poetry is something that is to be read delicately and cautiously if one wanted to find meaning through the words. Readers have to be gentle and patiently ponder about what they are reading in order to find any significance in the poem. If someone is not patient with reading, they will not feel impacted by poetry and will not want to read it. In Billy Collins’, “Introduction to Poetry,” he uses figurative language to help readers see that the way to enjoy and understand poetry is by reading between the lines and being patient with how each individual relates to the readings.
Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities; it is solely used to evoke emotive feelings in the reader in which to convey a message or story. This form of literature has a long history dating back thousands of years and is considered a literacy art form as it uses forms and conventions to evoke differentiating interpretations of words, though the use of poetic devices. Devices such as assonance, figurative language, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve a musical and memorable aspect to the poem. Poems are usually written based on the past experiences of the poet and are greatly influenced by the writer’s morals values and beliefs. Poetry regularly demonstrates and emphasises on the
The poems make for a simple addition to the narrative and allows for a much more meaningful experience for a reader and makes for a much more engrossing story, thus adding to the experience as a whole.
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
In poetry, we can vent our frustration and interpretations of the world around us on paper. Poets make their points using metaphors or little stories to bring them out. When reading poetry, I always put myself in the shoes of the first or third person to better understand what is trying to be put across in the words of the sonnets. Most poems can mean anything to anybody. There are many cases in which you see people finding beauty in things they don't even understand, such as an Italian Opera or Ancient Hieroglyphics painted on a pyramid wall. Poetry can be silly, cheesy, boring or down right appealing and consuming to the readers eyes.
,“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity" as William Wordsworth, the English Romantic poet, stated. Poetry is a way to express vast emotions and feelings in a way which is unique to the poet. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses.
When reading or listening to poetry, the main objective for me is to feel moved. Happiness, longing, sadness are some of the feelings that can be achieved just by listening to others’ words. It is within these words that creates another world, or separates us from our own. Words all have a certain kind of attachment to them, so if used properly an author can stimulate a reader beyond belief.
Language has always been the key to how humankind has interacted with each other, so it is only fitting that one of the oldest forms of expression is making written language an art form. Poetry is known to conjure images within our minds and speak to our soul in a profound way. The best poets can use a few lines to make one think and feel something inside on anything such as a political statement, or of the beauty of nature. An excellent example of a poet who made art out of written word is Poṉmuṭiyār in his A Young Warrior. The poem uses its content and form to provide the overall meaning that one should live in peace because life is short.
Poetry in essence is a written artistic form of expression. It allows for writers to reveal their ideas and feelings in a very unique way. Wallace Stevens once said, “Poetry is a destructive force”. In other words poetry has power, I believe this is a very true statement. Another poet by the name of William Carlos Williams once said, “Poetry is a small (or large) machine made out of words.” I also believe this statement to be true, each aspect of a poem is important to its function as a whole, and if something is missing or changed it can no longer work in the same way. The poet Derek Walcott I believe knew these “rules of poetry” and modeled them in his own writing. For example we can see use of these statements in his poem “A City’s Death By Fire”.
When we first started the poetry unit, I felt that I would hate reading and creating poetry. When I heard we had to read poetry I was very disappointed. Every other year we did poetry units, I hated it. I hated every part of it. I dreaded reading poetry and answering the questions. I mostly felt this way because I am a factual person. I always have to have one right answer. I do not like when there are more than one answer choices that are correct. Poetry always has more than one interpretation.This year, however, hearing poetry and writing my own poetry has changed my opinion on poetry. Although I still hate answering questions on the poems I love to listen to poetry and write my own poetry. But, even when you read the poems that I write they are very straightforward and there are usually no other ways to interpret it.
There are an assorted of various characteristics included in poetry including Rhyme, Rhythm, and Mood. Some poems use rhyming words to create a certain effect but not all poems rhyme, poetry that doesn’t rhyme is called “free verse poetry”. Sometimes poets use repetition of sounds or patterns to create a musical effect in their poems, rhythm can be created by using the same number of words or syllables in each line of a poem. Rhythm can be described as the beat of the poem. The mood of a poem is the feeling that it has. A poem can be sad, gloomy, humorous, happy, etc. There are many more various characteristics in poetry including shape, figurative language, descriptive imagery, punctuation and format, sound and tone, and choice of
In conclusion, I feel poets mainly write poems to express feelings, thoughts, and messages to the world. It’s an easy approach for them to use this writing technique as a way to articulate different aspects which could be improved in this world. I think what attracts people to poetry is writing which relates to each person in their everyday life no matter how it could be portrayed by. For some people poetry could be a relaxing thing or it could be something which cheers someone up, but people look to poetry to get a deeper thinking in life rather than a simpler thinking. This is clearly evident through authors, William Wordsworth and William Blake, and their poems “The World is too Much with Us” and “The Tyger.” Both poems related to one another one way or another, and they depicted different messages and themes which do relate to real life situations.