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 incantatory effects. Most poems are formatted in verse: a series or stack of lines on a page, which follow a rhythmic or other deliberate pattern. 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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Although meeting the criteria for an epic, the poem defies simple genre classification by its use of varying themes and tones. Ovid took inspiration from the genre of metamorphosis poetry, and some of the Metamorphoses derives from earlier treatment of the same myths; however, he diverged significantly from all of his models.
One of the most influential works in Western culture, the Metamorphoses has inspired such authors as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante and Boccaccio. Numerous episodes from the poem have been depicted in masterpieces of sculpture and painting by artists such as Titian. Although interest in Ovid faded after the Renaissance, towards the end of the twentieth century there was a resurgence of attention to his work; today, the Metamorphoses continues to inspire and be retold through various media. The work has been the subject of numerous translations into English, the first by William Caxton in 1480. (Full article...)
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Hilda "H.D." Doolittle (September 10, 1886 – September 27, 1961) was an American poet, novelist, and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets such as Ezra Pound and Richard Aldington.
H.D. was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1886 and moved to London in 1911, where her publications earned her a central role within the then emerging Imagist movement. A charismatic figure, she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building and furthering her career. From 1916–17, she acted as the literary editor of the Egoist journal, while her poetry appeared in the English Review and the Transatlantic Review. During the First World War, H.D. suffered the death of her brother and the breakup of her marriage to the poet Richard Aldington, and these events weighed heavily on her later poetry. Glenn Hughes, the authority on Imagism, wrote that 'her loneliness cries out from her poems. She had a deep interest in Ancient Greek literature, and her poetry often borrowed from Greek mythology and classical poets. Her work is noted for its incorporation of natural scenes and objects, which are often used to emote a particular feeling or mood.
She befriended Sigmund Freud during the 1930s, and became his patient in order to understand and express her bisexuality. H.D. married once, and undertook a number of relationships with both men and women. She was unapologetic about her sexuality, and thus became an icon for both the gay rights and feminist movements when her poems, plays, letters and essays were rediscovered during the 1970s and 1980s. (Full article...)
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that the frequently plagiarized poems "Candidate for a Pullet Surprise" and "A Grandchild's Guide to Using Grandpa's Computer" are often cited in discussions of internet publishing ethics?
- ... that scholarly study of the poetry of Kishvari, one of the most important Azerbaijani poets of the 15th and 16th centuries, only started in 1928?
- ... that the Gujarati poem "Shav Vahini Ganga" criticises the Indian government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic?
- ... that Jan Kochanowski's Fraszki is a 16th-century collection of almost 300 poems, ranging from anecdotes and epitaphs to obscenities and erotica?
- ... that Manuel Carpio's 1849 poem is the earliest literary depiction of the weeping ghost La Llorona?
- ... that an Elvin man sang Poems and Songs of Middle Earth?
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| Poetry by Marianne Moore |
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I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important |
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