What Brings a Poem to Life?

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Poetry, like any other piece of literature, is written to express certain emotion,feeling or idea as desired by the author. Without a defined format, poems come in all sorts of variations, each with it’s own sound,smell, and taste. The most successful poems masterfully give readers the Ah Ha! experience and invoke in them incomprehensible emotions that render them vulnerable to the poets message. William Shakespeare’ s Sonnet 18 and Sylvia Plath’s Metaphors adequately contain imagery,lineation,and tone to shape the meaning and allow the rest to the readers perception.However, no matter how elegant the poem may be structured the poem is nothing without the readers interpretation. Poetry is brought to life by the authors ability to use words in combinations that allow readers to create their own story.

A poem is a moment captured by the poet and written tactfully without any limitations. Nevertheless, the poet writes the poem with the clear conviction of pulling the reader into its grip and taking them through a journey of inexplicable experiences. The vitality of the poem comes from the reader, if a poem is able to surprise and jolt those who read it then it has successfully come to life; something about that poem was able clasp the complex mind of a reader. The connection formed between the poem and its reader dictates the grandeur and entity of the poem itself.

Poems, in their most essential and stripped form, are just a clever combination of words. Imagery, metaphors, lineation, assonance and consonance are elements that bring poems to life in the readers eyes, but what brings these elements to life? Words. Words on their own draw specific images in peoples minds by reminding them of events in which the word has solid mea...

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... It is clear to poets that the poem is nothing without the readers interpretation and with the perfect combination of words the poem is brought to life.

Works Cited

Flanagan, Mark. "What is poetry? Grasping at the indefinable." About.com. About.com, n.d. Web. 7 Feb 2011. .

Plath, Sylvia. "Metaphors." Literature:A Portable Anthology. 'Ed'. Stephen A. Scipione. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print

Seaton, Maureen. “On Language, Love, and Tiny Musicians.”28 Nov.10.Web.07 Feb.2011. .

Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 18." Literature:A Portable Anthology. 'Ed'. Stephen A. Scipione. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. Print.

Warren, Robert Penn. “True Love.” New and Selected Poems 1923-1985. New York: Random House. 1985.Print.

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