"Poetry is about showing, not telling"

910 Words2 Pages

Poetry is a lot of things to a lot of people, but can be characteristically described as an unwillingness to be defined, nailed down or labelled. The poet user words to create art instead of using the traditionally clichéd examples of art. In poetry the canvas the poet uses is the reader itself. Poets go beyond writers and consider a words emotive qualities, its values and even the spacing in relation to the page to create an emotional resonance in the reader. Poetry is an evocative art form able to inspire strong emotions in the reader such as happiness and anger while retaining the ability to surprise a reader. This essay focuses on poetry as a way of "showing, not telling", what the emotional response poets can create through their use of language is. How this affects the reader as well as the images a poet creates in a person's mind through their use of language.

Poets are able to create a vivid image in a readers mind through their use of language and in turn through these images to elicit in the reader an intense emotional response to help further enthral the reader in what the poet is trying to reveal to the reader. This can be seen through Wallace Stevenson's poem "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock" where the use of images is used to further define aspects of the poem. Throughout the poem five different colours are used and appear in lines two through five. There is a sense of defeat expressed through the colour white, with the lack of colour being to maybe evoke a sense of regret or a sense of lifelessness in the reader. This can elicit the feeling of ghosts passing through the house with a sense of monotony from "None are Green" and stressing unanimity of the ghosts with green meaning alive. They have lost their vitalit...

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...is emphasised trough the lines "I stop breathing". The poem expresses the resentment the poet feels of the way society has seemingly stopped caring and failing to notice what is going home around them. This is expressed trough the speaker no knowing about her death until he stops and takes in the wider world around him.

Poets have an uncanny ability to express different thoughts and expressions as well as creating images in a readers head using only words, thoughts and their senses. The poet does not need to describe what is happening but instead uses thoughts and opinions to express their writing in a way that is understandable to a reader as well as evoking a response in a reader that may not otherwise be experienced. This expresses the thoughts and opinions of a poet while also allowing reader to come to their own conclusion on what the meaning of the poem is.

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