In my preparation for this essay I thought that there was going to be very little that I would learn about the elements of poetry. This is not because I am an expert and have nothing new to learn, but rather the opposite. I have never really spent the time to break down and appreciate poetry. One of the reasons I think that I haven’t spent the time on poetry is due to my reading habits. I usually read to gather information and poetry is on the other end of the spectrum. Fredrick Gruber sums this up, “Poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.” (Gruber) Having said all of this though, I did see a couple of things that I could apply to my own writing. I will first start off with some elements of poetry that I don’t see myself applying.
First I will talk about rhyming. This is one of the first things people think about when they think about poetry. The old “Roses are red Violets are blue” verse is a perfect example of what comes to mind. Rhyming can add some feel to a poem and allow people to anticipate next lines, but it is not required. There was a time when rhyming was considered an integral part of a poem, but poetry has evolved. One person who helped this evolution was Emily Dickinson. “Sometimes she scarcely rhymed at all. And although there was a precedent for this practice. . . the music of her verse was new enough to seem revolutionary.” (Wolff 186) Dickinson did use rhyme, but she showed that it was not required. Song lyrics are many people’s only connection to poetry today. Lyrics, as we all know, make great use of rhyme. Looking forward in my writings I do not see myself using rhyme very much in my writings.
Poets also have alliteration and assonance at their disposal. I have known about a...
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...mpact form is amazing. How poets must see the written language is intriguing. Unlike many modern song lyrics that only worry about rhyme and rhythm, a true poet can take these elements and inject meaning into it. The imagery they can conjure up while maintaining a very specific style is their talent. I think that I can take the idea of choosing the right words to put meaning into my writing.
Works Cited
Charters, Ann, Samuel Charters. Literature and its Writers. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2007. Print.
Frost, Robert. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. 1923. Web. 1 Dec 2009.
Gruber, Fredrick Charles. “A concept of poetry: a critical analysis of poetry as a basis for educational experience”. University of Pennsylvania. 1934. Print.
Wolf, Cynthia Griffin. “Emily Dickinson”. De Capo Press. 1988. Print.
When I read poetry, I often tend to look first at its meaning and second at how it is written, or its form. The mistake I make when I do this is in assuming that the two are separate, when, in fact, often the meaning of poetry is supported or even defined by its form. I will discuss two poems that embody this close connection between meaning and form in their central use of imagery and repetition. One is a tribute to Janis Joplin, written in 1983 by Alice Fulton, entitled “You Can’t Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain.” The second is a section from Walt Whitman’s 1,336-line masterpiece, “Song of Myself,” first published in 1855. The imagery in each poem differs in purpose and effect, and the rhythms, though created through repetition in both poems, are quite different as well. As I reach the end of each poem, however, I am left with a powerful human presence lingering in the words. In Fulton’s poem, that presence is the live-hard-and-die-young Janis Joplin; in Whitman’s poem, the presence created is an aspect of the poet himself.
"Literature and Its Writers." Ann Charters, Samuel Charters. Literature and Its Writers. Boston & New York, 2010. 1763.
...r’.” Poetry for students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol. 43 Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?>.
A man by the name of Charles Simic once said, “Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them”(Quote Land). Poems have been written for thousands of years. When most people think of poetry, they either think of a sonnet, limerick, all the way down to a haiku. They also think that a poem is something that must be recited, but in reality a poem can also be sang as a song. Lately more and more songs that are being released have a story behind them, trying to express feelings of loneliness, death, or past experiences. One of the best examples would be rap. Rappers love to tell about “their” life in the city; when the times were rough because they were poor and all the violence going on. But rap isn’t the only type of music that can be interpreted as a poem.
Charter, Ann, and Samuel Charters, eds. Literature and its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin's, 2003.
1) The theme that I will explore for the two independent pieces, will involve the theme of simply finding who you really are. As a viewer we should see past the complications of the obstacles we face in our day-to-day lives, for our eyes should only then become fixated on the endless possibilities of the time we have left within the intersection of time and space. The viewer can than grasp each of the moments that are left, so they can imagine beyond the emptiness - alone to see a sense of self-discovery in the very center, only pondering on the isolated sense of power we hold as humans to create a new life of belonging. Also, the depiction of having a positive approach to life’s challenges is essential to explore life and work
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 Regina Barreca’s Poem, “Nighttime Fires”, she uses many elements of poetry to help portray the theme of the poem. Poetry is all about the way it is written. Poetry is short, so it tends to be much more complex than a novel. Poetry uses many elements to help the reader fully understand what the poet’s overall goal is. It is easy for the reader’s to enjoy this poem because it is easy to understand, and it can paint a great picture in the readers mind about the poem, using such elements. “Nighttime Fires” uses many elements such as: Tone, Image, and Figures of Speech.
Charters, Ann & Samuel. Literature and its Writers. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 137-147. Print.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
One of the greatest gems of whom America can be proud to say he is one of us, E E Cummings was one of the top poets of his time and even presently. He was a man who had his own style that would bring in-depth cognition to his writing. One of Cummings most renowned poems “in Just” is one such writing that showcases his style and cunning intellect. When analyzed it becomes very clear how many elements Cummings can use in just a few lines; some key principles he uses is musical devices, imagery, patterns, and allusion.
Concrete poetry presents its readers with a unique and often confounding situation. In addition to using language or parts of language in non-traditional ways, concrete poetry also uses elements that are more commonly associated with visual art. However, concrete poetry is not visual art. It is still concerned, primarily, with the use of language, generally to communicate some meaning to the reader in a way that is undeniably linguistic in nature. Concrete poetry is therefore an especially unique genre that draws upon and incorporates many different concepts from a variety of disciplines in order to fill in the gaps left when traditional grammar and syntax are eschewed.
Tucker, Martin. Moulton’s Library of Literary Criticism. Volume 4. Frederick Ungar Publishing Company. New York. 1967.
Poetry is the everlasting method of literature, and is used to portray emotions and stories in a much more in depth and descriptive style, as explained by Sir Joshua Reynolds, ‘Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.’
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.