POETRY

What is POETRY?

Definitions of poetry on the Web

There are many differing ideas of exactly what “poetry” is. Here, I have compiled a list of some of the definitions which were found.

Literature in metrical form

Any communication resembling poetry in beauty or the evocation of feeling (From Princeton)

Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις," poiesis, a “making” or “creating”) is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. (From Wikipedia)

A type of literature that is written in meter

An imaginative response to experience reflecting a keen awareness of language. Its first characteristic is rhythm, marked by regularity far surpassing that of prose. Poetry’s rhyme affords an obvious difference from prose.

Is produced in great quantity by song writers

Traditional poetry is language arranged in lines, with a regular rhythm and often a definite rhyme scheme. Nontraditional poetry does away with regular rhythm and rhyme, although is usually set up in metrical lines

Texts in rhythmic form, often employing rhyme and usually shorter and more concentrated in language and ideas than either prose or drama

A type of literature in which ideas and feelings are expressed in compact, imaginative, and often musical language. Poets arrange words in ways designed to touch readers’ senses, emotions, and minds. Most poems are written in lines that may contain patterns of rhyme and rhythm

The art of creating poems—the function of which is to present images concretely.

Poetry is verse written to create a response of thought and feeling from the reader. It often uses rhythm and rhyme to help convey its meaning.

A literary expression in which words are used in a concentrated blend of sound and imagery to create an emotional response

Story prose of spirit or feeling; usually made adhering to a structured style of writing

Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience into language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm

Writing that does not use standard sentence structure and paragraph formatting; often using rhythm and rhyme as part of their structure and will have specific line length and be set in stanzas rather than paragraphs

Printed text written with a specific rhythm, and possibly rhyme, unlike ordinary language

The literary genre that is characterized by rhythm and meter, syntactical inversions, and ellipses, the use of figurative language, and the imaginative use of sound in its association with meaning and that operates upon the reader as an emotional, rather than rational force

Type of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery to appeal to the reader’s emotional imagination

These definitions have some facts which all can agree on:

- Poetry has rhythm

- Poetry sometimes uses rhyme

- Poetry is an art that speaks to the emotional being of the reader

- Poetry has its own unique structure

- Poetry is as diverse and unique as it writer