Portal:Poetry
Welcome to the Poetry Portal
Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis, "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet. Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm (via metre), and sound symbolism, to produce musical or other artistic effects. Most written poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow a rhythmic or other deliberate structure. For this reason, verse has also become a synonym (a metonym) for poetry.
Poetry has a long and varied history, evolving differentially across the globe. It dates back at least to prehistoric times with hunting poetry in Africa and to panegyric and elegiac court poetry of the empires of the Nile, Niger, and Volta River valleys. Some of the earliest written poetry in Africa occurs among the Pyramid Texts written during the 25th century BCE. The earliest surviving Western Asian epic poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, was written in the Sumerian language.
Early poems in the Eurasian continent evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing as well as from religious hymns (the Sanskrit Rigveda, the Zoroastrian Gathas, the Hurrian songs, and the Hebrew Psalms); or from a need to retell oral epics, as with the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe, Indian epic poetry, and the Homeric epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. (Full article...)
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Ginsberg began work on "Howl" as early as 1954. In the Paul Blackburn Tape Archive at the University of California, San Diego, Ginsberg can be heard reading early drafts of his poem to his fellow writing associates. "Howl" is considered to be one of the great works of American literature. It came to be associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation, which included Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.
There is no foundation to the myth that "Howl" was written as a performance piece and later published by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books. This myth was perpetuated by Ferlinghetti as part of the defense's case during the poem's obscenity trial, as detailed below. Upon the poem's release, Ferlinghetti and the bookstore's manager, Shigeyoshi Murao, were charged with disseminating obscene literature, and both were arrested. On October 3, 1957, Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem was not obscene. (Full article...)
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| “ | As in the Arsenal of the Venetians Boils in the winter the tenacious pitch |
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Poetry WikiProject
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William Shakespeare (baptised April 26, 1564 – died April 23, 1616) was an English poet and playwright widely regarded as the greatest writer of the English language, as well as one of the greatest in Western literature, and the world's preeminent dramatist. He wrote about 38 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems. Already a popular writer in his own lifetime, Shakespeare's reputation became increasingly celebrated after his death and his work adulated by numerous prominent cultural figures through the centuries. In addition, Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in the literature and history of the English-speaking world. He is often considered to be England's national poet and is sometimes referred to as the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard or the "Swan of Avon"). (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that in 1968, actor Ludovic Antal recited a Romanian nationalist poem in front of tourists from Soviet Moldavia, causing them to flee for their bus for fear of a "provocation"?
- ... that Siegfried Goldschmidt translated Kalidasa's epic poem Sêtubandhu from Prakrit into German?
- ... that the fall of Sundrum Castle was alluded to in a poem by Robert Chambers in the 19th century and was later referred to as a curse?
- ... that one music critic said that despite being "noisy, banal, fundamentally insincere", Dmitri Shostakovich's symphonic poem October was nonetheless "enjoyable trash"?
- ... that Eyvindur P. Eiríksson has addressed modern alienation and man's relationship with nature through pagan poetry and a book about a fishing trawler?
- ... that Ashiq Peri was the first prominent female folk poet in Azerbaijan?
Selected poem
| Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service by T. S. Eliot |
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POLYPHILOPROGENITIVE
The sapient sutlers of the Lord In the beginning was the Word. A painter of the Umbrian school But through the water pale and thin The sable presbyters approach Under the penitential gates Along the garden-wall the bees Sweeney shifts from ham to ham |
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