Portal:Poetry

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Great Seal Script character for poetry, ancient China

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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Haiku (俳句, listen) is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan, and can be traced back from the influence of traditional Chinese poetry. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 phonetic units (called on in Japanese, which are similar to syllables) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a kireji, or "cutting word"; and a kigo, or seasonal reference. However, haiku by classical Japanese poets, such as Matsuo Bashō, also deviate from the 17-on pattern and sometimes do not contain a kireji. Similar poems that do not adhere to these rules are generally classified as senryū.

Haiku originated as an opening part of a larger Japanese genre of poetry called renga. These haiku written as an opening stanza were known as hokku and over time they began to be written as stand-alone poems. Haiku was given its current name by the Japanese writer Masaoka Shiki at the end of the 19th century.

Originally from Japan, haiku today are written by authors worldwide. Haiku in English and haiku in other languages have different styles and traditions while still incorporating aspects of the traditional haiku form. Non-Japanese language haiku vary widely on how closely they follow traditional elements. Additionally, a minority movement within modern Japanese haiku (現代俳句, gendai-haiku), supported by Ogiwara Seisensui and his disciples, has varied from the tradition of 17 on as well as taking nature as their subject. (Full article...)

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Charles Baudelaire by Étienne Carjat (circa 1862)

image credit: public domain

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Poetry WikiProject

The poetry WikiProject works to improve the quality and scope of all poetry-related articles. Please join us!

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Du Fu (Wade–Giles: Tu Fu; Chinese: 杜甫; pinyin: Dù Fǔ; 712 – 770) was a prominent Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty. Along with Li Bai (Li Po), he is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like the whole country, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest.

Although initially he was little-known to other writers, his works came to be hugely influential in both Chinese and Japanese literary culture. Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages. He has been called the "Poet-Historian" and the "Poet-Sage" by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers as "the Chinese Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, Béranger, Hugo or Baudelaire".

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... that Manuel Carpio's 1849 poem is the earliest literary depiction of the weeping ghost La Llorona?
... that Saudi Arabian poet Hamad al-Hajji lost three members of his family during his childhood and later suffered from schizophrenia until he died at the age of 49 after a lung disease?
... that in The Arraignment of Paris, poet Denis Glover stated Charles Allan Marris was the "arbiter of all our art and letters / presenting rotten apples to his betters"?
... that Handan Chun wrote a poem on the game of pitch-pot?
... that Taylor Swift initially wrote "This Love" as a poem, turning it into a song only when she came up with a melody?
... that poet Peggy Pond Church became a strong pacifist and a member of the Society of Friends after the Manhattan Project used her home as a place to build nuclear weapons?

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Song of Songs by anonymous (chapter 1)

1

¹The song of songs, which is Solomon's. ²Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth--for thy love is better than wine. ³Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance; thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore do the maidens love thee. ⁴Draw me, we will run after thee; the king hath brought me into his chambers; we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will find thy love more fragrant than wine! sincerely do they love thee. {P}

⁵'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. ⁶Look not upon me, that I am swarthy, that the sun hath tanned me; my mother's sons were incensed against me, they made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.' ⁷Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon; for why should I be as one that veileth herself beside the flocks of thy companions? ⁸If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock and feed thy kids, beside the shepherds' tents. {P}

⁹I have compared thee, O my love, to a steed in Pharaoh's chariots. ¹⁰Thy cheeks are comely with circlets, thy neck with beads. ¹¹We will make thee circlets of gold with studs of silver. ¹²While the king sat at his table, my spikenard sent forth its fragrance. ¹³My beloved is unto me as a bag of myrrh, that lieth betwixt my breasts. ¹⁴My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna in the vineyards of En-gedi. {S} ¹⁵Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves. ¹⁶Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant; also our couch is leafy. ¹⁷The beams of our houses are cedars, and our panels are cypresses.

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By type	Anarchist Early-modern women (England, Wales, Great Britain) Feminist Lyric Modernist National Performance Romantic Speculative Surrealist War Women

Portal:Poetry

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