PUWETRY

What is…

… POETRY?

An Expression of Feeling

An Insight

A discovery

It is about life

Is this it?

The proper definition of poetry?

If it is… then class dismissed

But it is not– OH NO IT IS NOT!

For if it is

Then there should be

No point trying to understand

Poetry

For poetry is one bitch

Hard to understand.

Poetry is a

Bitch

Don’t ya freakin’ dare shackle poetry

with definitions

Coz’ even the greatest and most ancients

Of writers

DISAGREE

As to what or how

POETRY

Is

---GOT THAT? DAWG?

Poetry is not all about you

Poetry is not all about me

Poetry is not all about sadness

Poetry is not all about bliss

Poetry is not all about

lifePoetry is not all about death

BUT…ON A PHILOSOPHICAL NOTE

We should not even say that poetry is all about EVERYTHING because poetry can also be about NOTHINGNESS

So why the hell do we bother ourselves in trying to find a limited definition for poetry? Why not just agree with what the definitions the ancients gave?

Because the point is the definition itself--LIMITED!

If we limit poetry to a certain definition, I bet my ass that there would be no…

Shakespeare

Balagtas

No Gloc- 9 even

And if poetry is limited to a certain definition, then there would be no…

Shijing

Vedas Zoroastrian GathasHomeric epics

Iliad and theOdyssey

Epic of Gilgamesh

Virgil's Aeneid Ramayana andMahabharata

Canterbury Tales Oku no Hosomichi

Biblicalpoetry

Paradise Lost

SonnetsThe Raven

Edgar Allan Poe

Robert Frost

Andrew Marvell

HomerWilliam Shakespeare

John Milton Jean Racine,Phèdre

Beowulf

Chaucer

Divine Comedy

Alexander Blok

Tanka

Haiku

Ode

Rumi

Narrative poetry

Juan Ruiz

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pushkin

Epic of King Gesar

Derek WalcottDramatic poetry

Satirical poetry

John Dryden

John Wilmot

Lyric poetryJohn Donne

Antonio Machado

Francisco Baltazar

Jose RizalElegy

Jan Kochanowski Thomas Gray

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Louis GalletVirginia Woolf

Emily DickensonRobert Henryson

Prose poetryAloysius Bertrand John Keats Home Burial

Ramayana

William Jones Soyinka

Neruda

Elizabethan sonnets

Aristotle 's Poetics alliteration

onomatopoeia rhythmambiguity

symbolism, irony

metaphorsimile

metonymy

Goethe MickiewiczRumi

modern poetry Aristotle

epic poetry

MatsuoBashō religious poetry

love poetry

comic

Let’s try to look into some definitions of poetry from some of the best that we study in school.

Wordsworth defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful

feelings" Emily Dickinson said, "If I read a book and it makes my body so cold no fire ever can warm me, I know that is poetry;"

Dylan Thomas defined poetry this way: "Poetry is what

makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this

or that or nothing."Got my point? They live poetry according to their own definitions.

Maybe the distinguishing and vital definition of poetry is its opposition to be limited into one definition– it does not want to

be boxed.However this

should not stop usin

tryingto

understand

Poetry

Before doing anything we want with poetry, we need to at least understand it a little– or much better, a lot!

Before we break the rules on poetry, we need to know them first– knowing two or three rules is enough.

Before we write in our style and disregard what has been laid as the standards, we need to know at least a couple of styles in poetry

Some simple ideas you need to know

One important characteristics of poetry is ECONOMY OF THE LANGUAGE

POETS

aRe

mISERLy

and

UNRELENTINGLY

cRITICAL

Making him/her realize the truth and beauty of the words

Poetry is EVOCATIVEIt should arouse in the reader strong emotionJ

Oy

Poetry should have the ability to surprise the reader

Like Keats said:"Beauty is truth. Truth, beauty.That is all ye know on Earth and all yeneed to know."

SORROw

ANGER

CATHARSIS

LOVE

REVELATION

INSIGHT

In the study of language, there is this

theory that the language evolves through time.

Basing from this, so then should the language that will be used in your

poetry.Think about this, Old English in today’s time?

Telling this might sound poetic in a sense, but it is more cryptic when uttered today

Thy love, ye higher man, verily I say unto thee is nothing but pure. “Didst thou sin?” So saith thy heart.So, what did you get? Shouldn’t poems give

meaning instead of hide in antiquated words and expression?

Don’t be a freaking EMO!Your being EMO can turn

your poem into a suicide note… DUH!

“My blood is pouring like the RiverI see nothing but color redI feel so empty, I’m dying foreverVoid feeling, it’s as if I’m dead.”

I’m so sad, I’m so aloneNo one wants to be my friendThey bully me and I’m on my ownI’m so lonely, I feel no loveMy heart is emptyI can’t feel my body

Your poems can take on other and much better theme of emotions

My blood is pouring like the riverI see nothing except my biterI feel so happy, I feel so hornyEdward Cullen is biting me Yours truly, Bella

I’m sad, I’m aloneNo one is here and so I moanThey couldn’t see it but I’m aloneI held my stomach as it groansOh no… here it comesOne deep breathe, and finally…My butt farted on its own.

Poets go well beyond careful conciseness and clarity. Poets consider a word's emotive qualities, its musical value, its spacing, and yes, even its spatial relationship to the page. The poet, through innovation in both word choice and form, seemingly rends significance from thin air.

Bassit nga sa-u lang kanu

As in, ‘di dapat malabo

Siguro guitar player yung wordMalapit kung

sweet dance, malayo kung Gangnam style

“And God said, let there be light… and there was light”

Meaning was created out of nothing…

…there were only God’s words.

You have NO RIGHT to write about love if YOU have never experienced being LOVED, or BROKEN HEART if you never experienced being broken hearted, or even about faith and religion if you have no faith or religion.

Poetry is no longer the same, static, stationary or boxed.Today, poetry is active, encompassing and dynamic.

Consider the following:

JAN et was quite ill one day.FEBrile trouble came her way.MAR tyr-like, she lay in bed;APR oned nurses softly sped.MAY be, said the leech judicialJUN ket would be beneficial.JUL eps, too, though freely tried,AUGured ill, for Janet died.SEP ulchre was sadly made.OCT aves pealed and prayerswere said.NOV ices with ma'y a tearDEC orated Janet's bier.

Acrostics

Concrete poetry

A style where in the poem takes theshape of the object it describes. It is a form of free verse where the writer is less concerned with counting syllables and lines.

Graphic Poetry

Combining poetry with images and illustrations

Consider Literary Graphics

This is also known as concrete poetry

Your poems can be as like these, with graphics or the poem itself become the graphic.

Illustrations are added to add impact or portray the poem in a new medium

The Words became the illustration

Poetry jumping from word to illustration and from illustration to word

Theme can also affect the spacing and shape of the poem

Words and letter can also be visually artistic but still expressive in meaning if printed right.

The words of the poem go with the shape of the poem.

How about adding images or illustrations in your poem?

Ebon Heath

A poet who uses this kind of style for his poetry

How about trying to make your own lay-out for your own poem?

Ever tried breaking even the rules of grammar to make a poem?

End