Portal:Poetry

Welcome to the Poetry Portal

The first lines of the Iliad

Great Seal Script character for poetry, ancient China

Poetry (a term derived from the Greek word poiesis, "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, a prosaic ostensible meaning. A poem is a literary composition, written by a poet, using this principle.

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...)

Selected article

Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It has been described as the most influential movement in English poetry since the activity of the Pre-Raphaelites. As a poetic style it gave Modernism its start in the early 20th century, and is considered to be the first organized Modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is sometimes viewed as 'a succession of creative moments' rather than any continuous or sustained period of development. René Taupin remarked that 'It is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles'.

The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry, in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets, who were generally content to work within that tradition. Imagism called for a return to what were seen as more Classical values, such as directness of presentation and economy of language, as well as a willingness to experiment with non-traditional verse forms. Imagists use free verse. (Full article...)

Selected image

French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau

image credit: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Poetry WikiProject

Charles Baudelaire

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Selected biography

Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e e cummings (in the style of some of his poems—see name and capitalization, below), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright. His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and paintings. He is remembered as an eminent voice of 20th century English literature.

Despite Cummings's familiarity with avant-garde styles (undoubtedly affected by the Calligrammes of Apollinaire, according to a contemporary observation , much of his work is quite traditional. Many of his poems are sonnets, albeit often with a modern twist, and he occasionally made use of the blues form and acrostics. Cummings' poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual to the masses and to the world. His poems are also often rife with satire. (Full article...)

Did you know (auto-generated) -

• ... that after civil rights activist Andrew Goodman was murdered, Mary Doyle Curran found and published a poem that Goodman had written for her class?
• ... that Iraqi poet Isa Hasan al-Yasiri ran away from school at 10 years old, before travelling with a camel caravan overnight to another village?
• ... that Rabab Al-Kadhimi was threatened with deportation from Egypt due to the political nature of her poetry?
• ... that the UK's former chief immigration adjudicator, Judge Hubert Dunn, published a book on the Irish poet Francis Ledwidge, including some previously unseen poems?
• ... that the Blemyomachia is an epic poem describing a historical clash between the Roman Empire and the Blemmyes in the Nile valley?
• ... that the poet Fernando Pessoa considered Alberto Caeiro, one of his own heteronyms, to be his master?

Selected poem

Clouds will separate us by Matsuo Basho
Clouds will separate us — the time to part has come now. Wild goose flies away...

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