What is Poetry?

Poetry is a mode of writing which has a number of different forms. It is often used to express overwhelming emotions such as: love, hate, sadness or happiness. However, poetry can also be used to tell stories, or rather epics.

Some stereotypical and unappreciative views of poetry would include:

1. That there must be a rhyming scheme, which by definition is lame and cheesy.
2. Poems are choc-full of symbolism, metaphors, similies and other literary devices, that though the poem is written in English, it wouldn't appear that way.
3. Due to the overwhelming number of literary devices, there is too much underlaying meaning within the poem for it to be readily understood.

Indeed, those views do hold some water to them because a vast number of poems do have rhyming schemes but if the poem is worthwhile reading, then the rhymes will have been carefully thought out. Also poems wouldn't be the beautiful piece of prose that they are without the use of some literary devices to make the language flow easily like a babbling brook. As well, every piece of literature has some underlaying meaning to it so why should poems be any different?

sv